To achieve success in any field of activity, knowledge of a foreign language is necessary. To study at least one at a sufficient conversational level, experts advise using the services of a native speaker. Who is he. What are the options? Is it true that native speakers are the best teachers? Let's find the answers to all these questions.
Who is called a native speaker?
This term has several ways of interpretation. If you combine them, you can formulate such a definition.
A native speaker is a person who uses it in all areas of everyday life, and also speaks and thinks on it from childhood.
There is still debate among linguists about whether the language should be native to such an individual. The most common opinion is that this is not a prerequisite in order to be considered a native speaker. An immigrant can also bear this name. The main thing is that he begins to master its fundamentals no later than 6-7 years. According to scientists, at this age, the child is still able to completely "plunge" into a new speech, and it will become native to him.
In some cases, having lived for several decades in a foreign country, and having adopted its way of life, culture, and most importantly - the conversational environment, a person is able to learn the language at the level of its native speaker. It is worth considering that one of the conditions for such a transformation is the almost complete cessation of communication in native speech. As a result, her knowledge, although it will be preserved, but will recede into the background, an emphasis will appear.
By the way, that is why only especially gifted individuals are able (knowing several foreign languages at the same time) to speak them without emphasis. And even then, its presence will have to be controlled. Our brain tends to simplify everything, and the speech apparatus depending on it will always try to use the same model of articulation for everything.
As the English name is "native speaker"
This phrase is translated by British linguists as speaker. However, the term has several methods of translation and also means "speaker", "announcer", "speaker", etc.
In cases where the context can be interpreted differently, linguists use the expression native speaker.
Literally, this is translated not just as a “native speaker,” but as exactly the one for whom he is native. Thus, the English name gives a deeper understanding of who the native speaker is. True, it is worth considering that this term arose several centuries ago, at a time when people moved somewhere most often by necessity, and not because of the desire to see the world. Only native inhabitants of the region where it was used, that is, native people, could truly master a language.
And although today it is proved that if you really try, the immigrant will be able to thoroughly learn a foreign language, he will have to make much more effort than any child growing up in this country.
Criteria for defining native speaker
Having considered who this “native speaker” is, it is worthwhile to find out what requirements a person must meet in order to belong to this category.
- Lack of emphasis. This refers to a foreign one. Each language has dialects, which means that residents of different parts of the country are able to speak their native language with an accent that is characteristic of their region.
- To be able to recognize different types of relevant speech situations, as well as behave according to accepted communicative norms.
- To be able to spontaneously speak fluently and perceive what others have said in this language, even if it is one of its dialects.
- Have an intuitive sense of speech, understand it just by hearing.
- Learn the language in early childhood (during the so-called "critical period") from their parents or those involved in raising a child.
The last point is controversial and has not so much linguistic background as cultural. Following him, a child from national minorities who grew up in his own environment is a native speaker of his country of residence. However, like his parents, he can speak it with emphasis and make not only grammatical, but also semantic mistakes.
At the same time, an immigrant who began to learn foreign speech in adulthood is capable of studying it better in a few years of active efforts. It’s another matter that due to the age and “programming” of his brain into one main language, it will be more difficult for an adult to “flash” it into another while a child whose mind in this regard is still a “tabula race” can do this effortlessly.
The Importance of Native Speakers
The presence of native speakers is an indispensable condition for the existence of any language. His "life" depends on them. After all, it exists as long as it is spoken, moreover, in everyday life. Moreover, not the number of carriers determines its safety.
For example, the same Latin, although it is still considered the language of science and medicine. Linguists attribute it to the category of dead speech. Although it knows and understands at least half a billion earthlings.
The main role of each native speaker is not so much its preservation, as transmission to the next generation. The older the main native speakers - the greater the threat to their speech.
Ideally, language should be used by people of all generations and ages in all areas of their lives. Only under such a condition is its full existence and longevity guaranteed.
Types of native speakers
Depending on how often people use their main language, linguists have identified seven types of speakers.
- Ideal. An individual who, from birth, uses his native language both in the family and beyond in all spheres of life.
- The last carrier. This is the other extreme. This is the name of the person who alone retained all the knowledge and skills relating to his native language. With his death, his tongue is considered dead. It is worth noting that this type of native speaker is more often determined by social rather than linguistic criteria. Often, such people assign this status and declare themselves arbiter in linguistic matters, even if they do not have real competence. Therefore, this variety is referred to as mythological.
- Semi-carriers. These are people whose use of their native language is partially limited by some objective or far-fetched factors.
- Residual native speakers. These are those who forget their native language. In fact, immigrating and trying to master the speech of the new homeland, a person gradually turns into just such a carrier. Provided that he wants to change his native language and does everything for this. In this case, the speech to which he is accustomed will gradually be forgotten, as will his ability to recognize it, and most importantly, speak it. As a rule, such native speakers are children or adolescents whose parents transported them for permanent residence to another country.
- If the previous variety can be called "forgetting", then in contrast to it there are "remembering". These are native speakers, who for some reason were forced to abandon the use of their native language (genocide, forced relocation in childhood), but now they are trying to restore the ability to speak it.
- Carriers. These are those who seek to become part of the linguistic community not for social, but cultural reasons.
- Invisible carriers. They know their native language very well, but deny or even hide it. One of the first references in the history of such a native speaker in the Bible. This is Joseph. Sold out of envy into slavery, becoming the second person after the ruler of Egypt, he hid from his brothers not only his personality, but also his ability to understand their speech.
Using native speakers to learn it
Today, many foreign companies, looking for a linguistic teacher, most often require candidates to be native speakers. The fact is that even the best teacher will not be able to teach students to perfectly pronounce words from another language if it is foreign to him. Such things cannot be conveyed; they must be felt at the level of intuition. And to develop this ability, it takes years of immersion in the corresponding linguistic environment.
Proceeding from this, they are increasingly striving to learn a foreign language precisely with its native speaker.
By the way, such a tradition is by no means new. In the same Tsarist Russia, nobles and merchants hired native speakers tutors a few centuries ago to train their children.
Advantages and disadvantages of this practice
Although teaching under the guidance of a native speaker greatly facilitates this process, it is not a guarantee of success so that fashion brochures do not speak on this subject. There are pros and cons in this practice. In conclusion, let's look at them.
Advantages of learning with a carrier.
- Immersion in the language environment.
- The ability to learn to understand slang and fuzzy diction, which is typical for most native speakers.
- The acquisition of not only linguistic knowledge, but also cultural.
- Replenishment of your vocabulary is really necessary for life in a foreign country.
Despite the advantages, this practice has several disadvantages.
Each native speaker will teach language and culture in terms of the environment in which he grew up. Far from the fact that it corresponds to the one for which the student prepares himself. Remember the stories about the foreign tutors of the Russian classics. Most of them got this job because of the inability to earn a living in their own country. As a rule, these were single women who could not marry and had no means of livelihood (Madmoiselle O, Nabokova, Pushkin, the young lady-peasant), or chasing adventurers (Captain’s daughter). On the other hand, not all foreign tutors were incompetent. Many of them became excellent teachers. This is evidenced by the fact that during the war with Napoleon in 1812, Russian officers penetrated the enemy camp without any problems. Indeed, thanks to native speakers, their French was so good that they were mistaken for their own.
As a rule, native speaker requires the ability to speak without accent. In order to save on this role, they often invite not teachers or linguists (as was the case with Joan Rowling, who at one time taught English in Portugal), but ordinary hard workers who did not find work in their specialty. It is not uncommon for such "teachers" who have arrived to exchange wisdom to be at odds with grammar.