Native-Speakerism in Japan

Intergroup Dynamics in Foreign Language Education

By Stephanie Ann Houghton, Damian J. Rivers

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2013 Stephanie Ann Houghton, Damian J. Rivers and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84769-869-8

Contents

Tables and Figures,
List of Acronyms,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction: Redefining Native-Speakerism Stephanie Ann Houghton and Damian J. Rivers,
Part 1: Native-Speakerism: Shifting to a Postmodern Paradigm,
1 ‘Native Speaker’ Teachers and Cultural Belief Adrian Holliday,
Part 2: ‘Native Speaker’ Teachers in Workplace Conflict,
2 (Dis)Integration of Mother Tongue Teachers in Italian Universities: Human Rights Abuses and the Quest for Equal Treatment in the European Single Market David Petrie,
3 Kumamoto General Union vs. the Prefectural University of Kumamoto: Reviewing the Decision Rendered by the Kumamoto District Court Kirk Masden,
4 The Overthrow of the Foreign Lecturer Position, and its Aftermath Stephanie Ann Houghton,
5 Institutionalized Native-Speakerism: Voices of Dissent and Acts of Resistance Damian J. Rivers,
6 Negotiating a Professional Identity: Non-Japanese Teachers of English in Pre-Tertiary Education in Japan Joe Geluso,
7 Forming Pathways of Belonging: Social Inclusion for Teachers Abroad Joseph Falout,
Part 3: Employment Policies and Patterns in Japanese Tertiary and Secondary Education,
8 Communicative English in Japan and ‘Native Speakers of English’ Ryoko Tsuneyoshi,
9 Hiring Criteria for Japanese University English-Teaching Faculty Blake E. Hayes,
10 On the (Out)Skirts of TESOL Networks of Homophily: Substantive Citizenship in Japan Salem Kim Hicks,
11 The Construction of the ‘Native Speaker’ in Japan’s Educational Policies for TEFL Kayoko Hashimoto,
12 The Meaning of Japan’s Role of Professional Foreigner Evan Heimlich,
Part 4: Native-Speakerism as a Multi-Faceted and Contemporary Social Phenomenon,
13 Scrutinizing the Native Speaker as Referent, Entity and Project Glenn Toh,
14 Racialized Native Speakers: Voices of Japanese American English Language Professionals Ryuko Kubota and Donna Fujimoto,
15 Native-Speakerism through English-Only Policies: Teachers, Students and the Changing Face of Japan Jennifer Yphantides,
Part 5: Native-Speakerism from Socio-Historical Viewpoints,
16 Changing Perceptions? A Variationist Sociolinguistic Perspective on Native Speaker Ideologies and Standard English in Japan Robert M. McKenzie,
17 Ideologies of Nativism and Linguistic Globalization Philip Seargeant,
18 The Native Speaker Language Teacher: Through Time and Space Martine Derivry-Plard,
References,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

‘Native Speaker’ Teachers and Cultural Belief

Adrian Holliday

Introduction

Teachers who have traditionally been labelled ‘native speakers’ have much to offer. However, their potentially positive contribution has been marred by the ideology of native-speakerism which promotes the belief that they represent a ‘Western culture’ from which spring the ideals both of English and of the methodology for teaching it (Holliday, 2005a). This in turn derives from Phillipson’s (1992) well-known linguistic imperialism thesis that the concept of the superior ‘native speaker’ teacher was explicitly constructed in the 1960s as a saleable product to support American and British aid trajectories. Inherent to this ideology is a conviction that ‘non-Western’ cultural realities are deficient, which I term cultural disbelief. I will, however, take a positive line and argue that it is possible to counter cultural disbelief by means of a subtle but significant professional shift to cultural belief, but that this also requires a shift from a modernist, positivist to a postmodern paradigm.

I will first look at the importance of associating native-speakerism with cultural disbelief, and then consider what it takes to shift to cultural belief.

The Danger of Domesticating the Issue

It is now fairly well-established that there is little linguistic support for a native – non-native speaker distinction (Braine, 1999; Canagarajah, 1999a; Jenkins, 2000). Nevertheless, much of the research into the distinction continues to revolve around the linguistic factor, the attitudes of language learners to ‘native’ or ‘non-native speaker’ exposure and the self-perceptions or special contribution of ‘non-native speaker’ teachers (Moussu & Llurda, 2008). These are important discussions which run deeply into the day-to-day lives of teachers and language students. They have led to an acute awareness across the profession of employment discrimination against ‘non-native speaker’ teachers, and to affirmative action in the constitutions of professional bodies such as TESOL (Moussu & Llurda, 2008).

However, taking affirmative action against discrimination on linguistic grounds can easily lead to the native – non-native speaker issue being domesticated, i.e. demoted to an everyday professional concern, and to a feeling that the problem has been solved. Over the past two years, my British masters’ students have been telling me that discrimination against ‘non-native speaker’ teachers is a thing of the past and could not happen now. In contrast to this statement of optimism, there is evidence of a sustained, tacitly held cultural chauvinism. A recent qualitative study reveals that British teachers consider it their ‘birthright’ to criticize, albeit without foundation, not only the linguistic and pedagogic performance but also the cultural background and proficiency of their ‘non-native speaker’ colleagues, and that this chauvinism is deeply rooted and goes unrecognized in everyday professional discourses (Aboshiha, 2008; also cited in Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009). Moreover,

The profession seemingly does nothing to examine these ‘loaded discourses’ either at the beginning of teachers’ careers or during them, so in this way it is possible for such discourses to be unendingly perpetrated and the superior identity of the ‘native speaker’ teacher endlessly reinforced throughout the teachers’ careers. (Aboshiha, 2008: 149)

There is therefore something deep within the profession everywhere which makes it possible for ‘native speaker’ and ‘nonnative speaker’ to continue as a basic currency not only for labelling teachers but also for judging them through forms of chauvinism of which we are largely unaware and easily put aside. I say ‘everywhere’ because, as with other successful ideologies, native-speakerism has travelled and taken root beyond the group that instigated it. Discrimination against ‘non-native speaker’ teachers is evident in employment practices and customer preference far beyond the English-speaking West (e.g. Ali, 2009; Holliday, 2005a; Shao, 2005). White Western teachers can themselves be caught up in employment practices where they are used by schools to foreign governments because of their perceived speakerhood rather than other professional attributes they may possess (Kumaravadivelu, 2012: 22, citing Widin).

Discourses, Ideology and Paradigms

To understand, and then to act against, this hidden cultural disbelief, it is necessary to look at the tacit ways in which ideas about professional identity are organized and expressed through discourses, and at the ideologies which drive these discourses. A definition of discourse which is meaningful here is ‘a group of statements which provide a language for talking about i.e., a way of representing a particular kind of knowledge about a topic’ (Hall, 1996: 201, citing Foucault). In this respect, the ‘kind of knowledge’ is governed by the ideology, which the discourse thus serves. A definition of ideology which I find useful is ‘a set of ideas put to work in the justification and maintenance of vested interests’ (Spears, 1999: 19). Looking at the ‘native speaker’ issue in terms of discourse and ideology requires moving away from a practical, modernist preoccupation with what is the most efficient way to teach language, and into a postmodern understanding that what may appear most efficient (i.e. a ‘native speaker’ or a ‘non-native speaker’ mode) is itself always ideologically driven. Risking grave over-simplification from a very broad literature of views, these two paradigms can be summarized as follows, my most helpful sources being Guba and Lincoln (2005), Usher and Edwards (1994) and Berger and Luckmann (1979). The modernist paradigm states that social reality is definable and measurable in an objective, neutral manner. A positivist research methodology is aligned with this in its presumed ability to find objective truth. The postmodern paradigm, in contrast, states that science cannot escape from being subjective and ideological. A constructivist research methodology is aligned with this in its focus on how social reality is constructed through discourses. Dichotomizing professional thinking into these two paradigms may seem hypocritical, as it may appear as essentialist as defining cultural behaviour as either individualist or collectivist, which I critique below. There is, however, an important difference. I am not claiming, as the modernists tend to, that the categories are neutral and that one is not favoured over the other. Indeed, it is my intention to favour postmodernism and to Other modernism; and I do this openly from the position of postmodernism. Moreover, I believe that Othering modernism is justified because it has sufficient social and academic capital to bear it. As this chapter develops, I also Other the West because it has sufficient cultural capital to bear it. In places, I also take the liberty of imposing the postmodern label on researchers who might not themselves buy into it. In such cases, I take full responsibility for interpreting their work in this manner.

The two paradigms impact on the labelling of the native – non-native speaker division. The modernist, positivist paradigm suggests that categories such as ‘native speaker’ can be objective and neutral and relate to real domains, but that their definitions need to be researched, refined and made more accurate. The postmodern, constructivist paradigm, in contrast, maintains that such categories are blurred, negotiable and constructed by ideologies and discourses. This means that, at the risk of annoying the reader, at the risk of annoying the reader, it is necessary always to use inverted commas for the terms ‘native speaker’ or ‘nonnative speaker’ to emphasize that they are always ‘so-called’. It also means that the trend, followed by several journals, of using standardized acronyms such as NNS can lead us to forget that they are ‘so-called’, thus contributing to domesticating them as ‘normal’, routinized aspects of our professionalism. It would be better not to use the terms at all, but we do not yet have a suitable language to do this appropriately unless we simply refer to ‘teachers’.

Somewhat connected with the postmodern view of labelling, although there is some geographical connotation, I use ‘the West’ and ‘Western’ as ideological concepts implying ‘superior’, ‘developed’ and ‘modern’ (Hall, 1996), which are closely associated with the notions of Centre, as a source of power which defines the rest of the world, and Periphery, which is the victim of Centre definition (Hannerz, 1991). The use of ‘White’, while implying skin colour, is similarly associated with the ‘supremacy’ of the West (Kubota & Lin, 2006). All of these terms are capitalized in common usage to indicate that they are more than neutral indicators of place or colour.

The Architecture of Cultural Disbelief in English Language Education

Cultural disbelief within native-speakerism connects with a broader ideology of neo-racism within Western liberal multiculturalism. According to the postmodern, critical cosmopolitan stance, discourses of cultural difference, though they may appear ‘inclusive’ and ‘celebratory,’ in effect reduce non-Western cultural realities and hide racism (Delanty et al., 2008; Hall, 1991a; Lentin, 2008; Spears, 1999).

In English language education, racism is revealed increasingly where the discrimination against ‘non-native speakers’ is connected to skin colour. Hence, non-White teachers are taken for ‘non-native speakers’ even if they were born and brought up with English as a first or only language; and White teachers who do not have this background can pass easily as ‘native speakers’ (e.g. Kubota et al., 2005, citing Connor; Kubota & Lin, 2006; Shuck, 2006). Yet, it is argued, this racism remains hidden beneath an ‘inclusive’ professional veneer (Kubota, 2002a), which, I would like to argue, as in Western multiculturalism, is promoted by an apparent celebration of cultural difference within the modernist, positivist paradigm, which would deny cultural disbelief (Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009).

Although the modernist paradigm will claim that national cultural descriptions are neutral and indeed celebratory of cultural difference, as long as they are carefully researched, the postmodern view is that the boundaries between cultural realities are blurred and negotiable and that descriptions of cultures are ideological (Beck & Sznaider, 2006; Hall, 1991b). The claim that, for example, the commonly stated descriptions of individualist and collectivist cultures are objective and neutral (Hofstede, 1991; Triandis, 2006) is thus refuted on the grounds that they are Western ideological constructions which represent an idealized Western Self and a demonized non-Western Other, respectively (Holliday, 2011; Kim, 2005; Kumaravadivelu, 2007; Moon, 2008). This view is borne out by the always positive, individualist descriptions of ‘native speakers’ as possessing self-determination and the ability to plan and organize, and the always negative, collectivist descriptions of ‘non-native speakers’ as being deficient in these areas (Holliday, 2005a; Kubota, 2001; Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Nayar, 2002; Pennycook, 2000).

Cultural disbelief thus imagines that while ‘other cultures’ have the right to be themselves, they present a ‘problem’ by not being very good at taking part in activities which require an imagined Western world view. In English language education, this ideology is translated into a powerful professional discourse which perpetuates the fallacy that ‘non-native speaker’ teachers and students have ‘problems’ with the ‘autonomy’, ‘critical thinking’ and educational ‘contexts’ necessary for effective language learning, and hijacks and claims exclusive rights to these concepts, and which makes them look, mistakenly, as though they are Western products.

A well-known example of this imagining of ‘problem’ concerns Chinese or East Asian students (Reid et al., 2009), even though there is considerable evidence that the cultural profiling, which often focuses on a perceived lack of autonomy and communicative ability, has been shown in a number of cases to be unfounded (e.g. Cheng, 2000; Clark & Gieve, 2006; Grimshaw, 2010; Holliday, 2005a; Kubota, 1999; Ryan & Louie, 2007). This preoccupation with ‘autonomy’ and ‘critical thinking’ within English language education is not dissimilar to the preoccupation with Islam within the wider West – non-West cultural politics, which has become a ‘symbolic battleground’ of cultural identity (Delanty et al., 2008).

The Need for Action

Action needs to be taken to convert this cultural disbelief into cultural belief. While cultural disbelief finds the cultural background of ‘non-native speaker’ teachers, and indeed students, deficient and problematic, cultural belief perceives the cultural background of any teacher or student to be a resource. The nature of the ‘problem’ would therefore shift to how to capitalize on the cultural richness and experience which teachers and students bring with them. There are three important factors to note about the feasibility of this shift.

The potential to leave ideology behind

Because native-speakerism is an ideology, it does not have to be bought into; and certainly by no means all the teachers who have English as their mother, and perhaps only, tongue, who are ‘White’, and born and brought up in the English-speaking West, subscribe to native-speakerism or the prejudices which it involves. However, they find themselves caught up in an educational methodology which is shot through with native-speakerist discourses, which, since its roots are in audiolingualism, has been a major driving force of their professionalism. There is much which is positive stemming from the immense experience and good intention which originates in the English-speaking West, if it can be liberated from cultural disbelief. In this sense, cultural disbelief can be cast as a form of false consciousness (Holliday, 2011).

While this may be particularly the case with White teachers, who are implicated in the far deeper cultural disbelief of the Western society within which they are located, it can be argued that false consciousness is also evident among a large number of people in all sectors of the profession, who have bought into cultural descriptions which in effect marginalize them (Kumaravadivelu, 2006).

Hidden cultural potential

Another aspect of the postmodern, critical cosmopolitan view of culture is that Centre-Western imposition of cultural theories leads to the cultural potentials of the non-West remaining unrecognized, within what might be called top-down globalization (Hall, 1991b). The same view maintains that the attributes which the West claims for itself, such as ‘autonomy’ and ‘critical thinking’, can be found everywhere (Kubota, 2001). The process of shifting to cultural belief therefore requires being positively open to the total proficiency of any cultural realities which may not be evident because of the manner in which we have grown used to looking at things. Elsewhere, influenced by interviews with 32 informants from across the world (Holliday, 2011) and reconstructed ethnographic narratives, I have described often unrecognized underlying cultural processes which involve universal skills and strategies through which all parties, regardless of cultural background, negotiate their individuality in dialogue with national structures. Creating discourses of and about culture and imagining narratives of Self and Other are all part of this, revealing such concepts as ‘collectivism’ and ‘individualism’ to be cultural narratives or discursive constructions rather than descriptions of how cultures are.

Enhanced cultural experience

Underlying universal cultural processes and the promise of unrecognized cultural richness implies that when people, from whatever cultural background, encounter unfamiliar cultural realities, the prior cultural experience that they are able to draw on will provide a rich resource. This resonates with the fairly old notion of communicative language learning building on the communicative competence which language students bring with them from their existing linguistic experience (Breen & Candlin, 1980; Holliday, 2005a).

Hence, whereas cultural disbelief has tended to frame ‘nonnative speaker’ teachers and students as somehow confined and restricted by their collectivist cultures, cultural belief makes special effort to capitalize on the cultural experience that people bring with them, whoever they may be. Cultural travel in particular must be appreciated as an immense resource because of the greater diversity of experience it implies. The diverse experience which people bring from different cultural backgrounds may contribute in a variety of ways, with the potential to change and enrich both the nature and use of English and the way in which it is taught and learnt. Whereas cultural disbelief attempts to contain, define and pin down the foreign culture, cultural belief seeks to open up possibilities within a critical cosmopolitan climate in which all cultural practices are open to contestation (Delanty, 2008).

(Continues…)Excerpted from Native-Speakerism in Japan by Stephanie Ann Houghton, Damian J. Rivers. Copyright © 2013 Stephanie Ann Houghton, Damian J. Rivers and the authors of individual chapters. Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
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