Native speaker
A native speaker is someone who learned to speak a language as part of their childhood development. A native speaker's language is usually the language their parents speak and/or the language of their country of origin. It is the only language of a monolingual person, and likely the first language of a multilingual person which is acquired naturally in their native environment. It may serve as the basis for their sociolinguistic identity.
A native speaker of a language has the following traits:
- The speaker learnt the language in childhood,
- mastery of idiomatic forms of the language,
- comprehension of regional and social variance,
- fluent, spontaneous production and comprehension of discourse.
- Mastery of the grammar and vocabulary of the language tacitly.
Many employers of language teachers prefer native speakers.[1]
Further reading
[change | change source]- Davies, A. (2004). The native speaker in applied linguistics. In A.Davies & C. Elder (Eds.), The handbook of applied linguistics (pp. 431-450). Oxford, UK: Blackwell
References
[change | change source]- ↑ "Native or non-native: who makes a better English teacher?". www.europelanguagejobs.com. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
