Pushing against essentialist characterizations of language in Linguistics: Setting priorities in research, teaching, and advocacy

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Who counts as a “native” speaker or signer of a language? Everyone has intuitions about this concept, and what types of language experience, behavior, and identity might be relevant. However, when we start digging deeper into how this concept is applied, we start finding contradictions and pseudoscientific assumptions (Rajagopalan 1994, Bonfiglio 2010, Hackert 2012, Babel 2014, Cheng et al. 2021, Dewaele et al. 2022). Common ways of categorizing persons according to language experience and identity are based on essentialist assumptions which do not have empirical backing (De Houwer 2023). That is to say, categories like “English speaker” and “native signer” are rooted in abstract, ideologically constructed perspectives on the world – not in objective evaluations of data (Faez 2011, Kutlu 2020, Kutlu et al. 2022, Brown et al. 2023). Apparent correspondences between these categories and linguistic behavior are due to the fact that they can sometimes overlap with true predictors such as language experience and ideologies about speakerhood and belonging (Rothman et al. 2023, Cheng et al. 2022). These top-down categories have a massive impact on the way that language use is classified and evaluated, and structures of oppression such as racism, (trans)misogyny, colonialism, and ableism are implicated in both motivating these assumptions and the harm they produce (Craft et al. 2020, Ortega 2020, Leivada et al. 2023, Namboodiripad & Henner 2023). It is long past time for language researchers to come together to advocate for more humane and accurate characterizations of language users. 

The Workshop

This workshop brings together scholars who have been working to push against essentialist characterizations of language use in their research, and who are interested in thinking about how to bring this research into other spheres of their academic practice, including teaching, reviewing, evaluating, and advocating for language rights. Some of these scholars are active participants in the newly established ROLE Collective. The goals of this workshop are to (a) present to a general linguistics audience how the problem of “nativeness” and related essentialist notions of languagehood have been relevant across disciplines, and (b) to solicit and set priorities from the assembled community of interested linguists as to concrete actions and lines of inquiry. 

Our workshop consisted of three sections:

1. Introduction

First, an introductory talk by the workshop convenors motivates the workshop and briefly discusses some theoretical and practical motivations for moving away from essentialist notions of languagehood.

2. Presentations

Second, a panel of scholars will give lightning talks which address how the issue of “nativeness” and other essentialist concepts have created harm in their scholarly spaces. These scholars have been selected to represent a range of disciplines, approaches, institutions, and stages of academia. 

3. Structured Discussion

Finally, we will open the floor for structured discussion on this topic, soliciting feedback and advice from the assembled linguists.

Introduction

The history of linguistics is tied to the notion of native speakerism. The term ‘native speaker’ has been used extensively to describe a speaker who has unilingual access to, often, a standardized or prestigious variety of a given language. Linguists know that most language users do not live in a bubble, however, linguistic theory and practice often still centers the study of a mythical “pure” language used by a mythical “uncontaminated” language user. This is fundamentally problematic for theory building and research design. Indeed, even research which investigates variation or mutlilingualism/multilectalism often still makes essentialist assumptions about language experience and use, excluding not just multilinguals of all types, but also non-normative language users who experience oppression due to transmisogyny, ableism, and racism. This talk situates and summarizes research in linguistics and related fields which recommends moving away from the search for nativeness when it comes to linguistic theory and practice.

Presentation 1 - The native signer in sign language linguistics

Only around 5% of US deaf children are born to deaf parents (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2004), but most studies of sign languages focus on those individuals. There are good reasons for studying what sign languages look like when they are acquired from birth, including establishing the legitimacy of sign languages and measuring how a lack of sign language exposure affects deaf children. But which kinds of disservice are we doing to our field, the Deaf community as a whole, and the many deaf individuals who learned a sign language later in life by valorizing the “native signer” and focusing almost exclusively on perceived comparative deficits in other signers? The question of “native” sign language acquisition highlights broader problems with the concept of “nativeness”. What are we missing and who are we harming when we study a population mainly from the point of view of a small subset of its members?

Presentation 2 - Specifying the unspecified: Clarifying “native” and “non-native” terms to aid in the robustness of replication research.

The vagueness of the terms “native” and “non-native” when characterizing language users undoubtedly leads to inconsistencies among language researchers and research consumers in their interpretations of study participants’ backgrounds and behaviors. The problem is particularly noticeable when attempting to compare findings across studies–are the criteria for “native speaker” status the same across studies? In other words, is it safe to assume that “native” speakers of language X in one study are sampled from the same population as participants described the same way in another study? In this talk we discuss the consequences of such vague characterizations of study participants for reproducibility. Is the so-called “replication crisis” due in part to unspecified–and therefore unknown–differences between purportedly similar participant samples? We will explore the role that replication research(ers) can play in encouraging a richer and more respectful characterization of the people who participate in our research.

Presentation 3 - The "native" listening subject: Shifting the burden from speakers to perceivers

“Native” speakers of a language have often believed that it is their right to understand other speakers of their language, and that communication barriers are the fault of the other (i.e., “non-native”) speakers. In this talk, I address work aimed at examining how “native” listeners can adapt to accents which are unfamiliar to them. This work contains a scientific component, aimed at examining adaptation and linking this adaptation to other types of learning. However, this work also includes an educational component aimed at communicating to a general audience of individuals who often identify as “native speakers” themselves. We ask these audiences to consider how their notions of who is and isn’t a fluent speaker of a language may impact their perception and their willingness to communicate. 

Presentation 4 - Rejecting nativeness in pedagogical research for language courses: Advantages for Heritage Language instruction

Speakers of a heritage language are individuals who speak a language other than the majority language, often speaking the non-majority language at home and with family. In the context of my research, the population of heritage speakers are speakers of Spanish as a heritage language living in the United States. In the Spanish language learning context, SHLs are Spanish heritage language learners (SHLLs) and may be enrolled in a course designed specifically for SHLLs, a course designed for second language learners (L2s), or in a course designed for both SHLLs and L2s enrolled in the same language course. By rejecting nativeness in pedagogical research for language courses, learners can be appropriately instructed and learn effectively as bi/multilinguals while embracing their forms of knowledge, cultural experiences, and meaningfully communicating using language.

Presentation 5 - An undergraduate perspective on how linguists categorize multilinguals

As an undergraduate who is somewhat new to the world of linguistics, it can sometimes be confusing to juggle the various terms regarding levels of language learning and fluency. Before I started taking linguistics courses, I only knew that monolinguals and bilinguals existed. My undergraduate studies have introduced me to terms like “heritage speaker” and “native speaker,” but I also see how differently each of these groups (among others) are defined between researchers and the general public, and even between different linguists. By acknowledging these discrepancies and resolving to do what I can to promote unambiguous descriptions of these groups, I hope that we can decrease social stigmas that exist regarding language use and the harm it may cause towards speakers due to inaccurate multilingual population categorization.