A speaker who uses a first language or mother tongue.
"A child may be a native speaker of more than one language as long as the acquisition process starts early and necessarily prepuberty. After puberty (Felix, 1987), it becomes difficult--not impossible, but very difficult (Birdsong, 1992)--to become a native speaker."
(Alan Davies, "The Native Speaker in Applied Linguistics." The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Blackwell, 2004)
In recent years, the concept of the native speaker has come under criticism, especially in connection with the study of World English and New Englishes: "[W]hile there may be linguistic differences between native and non-native speakers of English, the native speaker is really a political construct carrying a particular ideological baggage."
(Stephanie Hackert, "A Discourse-Historical Approach to the English Native Speaker." World Englishes--Problems, Properties and Prospects, ed. by Thomas Hoffmann and Lucia Siebers. John Benjamins, 2009)
See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "The terms 'native speaker' and 'non-native speaker' suggest a clear-cut distinction that doesn't really exist. Instead it can be seen as a continuum, with someone who has complete control of the language in question at one end, to the beginner at the other, with an infinite range of proficiencies to be found in between."
(Caroline Brandt, Success on Your Certificate Course in English Language Teaching. Sage, 2006) - "The concept of a native speaker seems clear enough, doesn't it? It is surely a common sense idea, referring to people who have a special control over a language, insider knowledge about 'their' language. . . . But just how special is the native speaker?
"This common-sense view is important and has practical implications, . . . but the common-sense view alone is inadequate and needs the support and explanation given by a thorough theoretical discussion is lacking."
(Alan Davies, The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Multilingual Matters, 2003) - "I know several foreigners whose command of English I could not fault, but they themselves deny they are native speakers. When pressed on this point, they draw attention to such matters as . . . their lack of awareness of childhood associations, their limited
passive knowledge of varieties, the fact that there are some topics which they are more 'comfortable' discussing in their first language. 'I couldn’t make love in English,' said one man to me. . . .
"In an ideal native speaker, there is a chronologically based awareness, a continuum from birth to death where there are no gaps. In an ideal non-native speaker, this continuum either does not start with birth, or if it does, the continuum has been significantly broken at some point. (I’m a case of the latter, in fact, having been brought up in a Welsh-English environment until nine, then moving to England, where I promptly forgot most of my Welsh, and would no longer now claim to be a native speaker, even though I have many childhood associations and instinctive forms.)"
(David Crystal, quoted by T. M. Paikeday in The Native Speaker Is Dead: An Informal Discussion of a Linguistic Myth. Paikeday, 1985) - "Did anyone ever say you must shed your first language and embrace another if you wish to be taken seriously. Was there ever a time when you wondered if your first language counted as language at all. Or could it be babble, babytalk, ignorant, nonsense sounds and gestures that might entertain but could never be considered more than a distraction, a curiosity, a minstrel tongue you must rip from your mouth if you wish to grow up."
(John Edgar Wideman, Two Cities: A Love Story. Houghton Mifflin, 1998)
