| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40] > | What is your definition of “native speaker” and why does it matter to you to have a definition? Thread poster: Bernhard Sulzer
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| Native speaker of a LANGUAGE or of a COUNTRY? | Oct 12, 2014 |
Thomas Frost wrote:
How am I supposed to match a hybrid profile like this with a rigid concept like 'native language'?
Thomas has hit a delicate spot.
My 100% native language, which nobody can challenge, is Portuguese, Brazilian variant. Born in Sao Paulo, living here ever since apart from occasional travel.
This is a peculiar case in the Portuguese language, however since the intent is to set a worldwide overarching concept/definition for "native speaker", let's delve into this peculiar exception.
Legally, European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are one and the same language; both countries' Constitutions state so very clearly. Any translation professional knows that they should be treated as one source but two separate target languages.
Now I've never studied Spanish. Never sat through one single formal class. However I organized half a dozen business conferences where most participants came from all Spanish-speaking countries I can name. By sheer osmosis, I learned to speak some sort of pan-Hispanic 'mix' of all variants with such fluency, that it scares me every time I do it. People say it's clearly not the proverbial "Portuñol" (a pidgin PT+ES mix), but something else.
Now, as a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, I have a really hard time communicating with native European Portuguese speakers, legally one and the same language. In fact, it is easier for me to communicate in Spanish - which I never learned formally - than with European Portuguese, legally the same as my native language.
So how can the "native speaker" concept be tweaked to fit both cases, Thomas' and mine?
There should be countless others, possibly one for each polyglot anywhere.
My mother-in-law was born in Berlin, and moved to Brazil at age 4. Now she is 85, her countenance is still German, she speaks Portuguese with a German tone (the tempo, and a slight upwards pitch at the end of every phrase), and she still speaks flawless German... however she can't write it properly, because she was schooled in Brazil.
My late mother was Polish, however she studied for several years in Vienna. According to experts, she spoke and wrote enviably spotless Austrian German.
While both women praised each other's command of German, they shared some contempt for the Swiss German. No idea why.
My take is that any airtight definition of "native speaker" would stumble on millions of individual cases, not getting anywhere.
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 16:28
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Let's not confuse things | Oct 12, 2014 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
This is a key point, Bernhard. Nativeness is about immersion, not about birth. Absolutely not! This goes against all findings of modern linguistics.
Please, the English expression "about birth" does not always mean birth literally. As used here, it refers to the formative period that Bernhard believes is at the core of native language ability.
Some well established facts of linguistics are that a) at the moment of birth, we are potentially capable of learning and speaking any language and any number of languages simultaneously... [etc]
Yes, of course, but that is all about "how many" and "which", and not about "how well". The question of whether one can have more than one native language has not yet entered this thread (except in one or two side-comments). I have not mentioned it at all.
(1) our linguistic capabilities diminish as we grow, and (2) no matter how hard we try, we will never be as proficient in a learned language than in the language(s) we grew up with.
#2 does not follow #1. What diminishes is our ability to learn more than one language, and not our ability to become more proficient at any language. And neither of these points imply that our abilities in langauges that we learnt later in life will never be par to the ability of a language learnt early in life.
[Edited at 2014-10-12 11:42 GMT]
| | | | | I would say that a persons "native language', if you want to stick | Oct 12, 2014 |
to that term in the 21st century globalized world, is their idiolect--whatever they speak--often something unique, just specific to them.
Many people in their 20s, who have grown up in Brooklyn, do not understand heavy Brooklyn accent of the 20th century, especially when spoken fast--I just had a chance to witness it.
One of the students at the seminar even said: 'I am very sorry, but I do not understand most of what you are saying--could you at least slow down." S... See more to that term in the 21st century globalized world, is their idiolect--whatever they speak--often something unique, just specific to them.
Many people in their 20s, who have grown up in Brooklyn, do not understand heavy Brooklyn accent of the 20th century, especially when spoken fast--I just had a chance to witness it.
One of the students at the seminar even said: 'I am very sorry, but I do not understand most of what you are saying--could you at least slow down." She was referring to a speaker--a teacher in her 60s with a very heavy Brooklyn accent, which is not spoken by the younger generation anymore.
[Edited at 2014-10-12 12:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Probably never | Oct 12, 2014 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
And neither of these points imply that our abilities in langauges that we learnt later in life will never be par to the ability of a language learnt early in life.
Every person can potentially learn to do all sorts of tricky things in life. The difference between language nativeness and non-nativeness is that you learn your native language(s) the same way you learn to walk, i.e. with no effort at all.
Any person's linguistic capabilities in a native language go far beyond mastering the language as a learned skill. It is about your person itself being shaped by the language and the culture that goes with it. A quick example would be phonosemantics: you can master a language as much as you can, but the implicit symbolism of language and its sounds is something you can hardly train, or better said, you can train with long hours of study.
Let's face it: I think we all have a very clear picture of what "native" means, but to me this is a discussion in which people who are "proficient" try to sell their proficiency as "nativeness". Is it wrong that people who are non-native, but proficient in a language translate into it? It is perfectly alright if you ask me, but selling profiency as nativeness is clearly deceiving to customers who --whatever the capricious reasons-- want native translators.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:28
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| | Yes, but you can also forget it or | Oct 12, 2014 |
never develop your L1 to an educated, sophisticated enough level.
Usually one language is dominant--but it does not really have to be your L1. Many of the immigrant children cannot even read in their L1--when they came here before the age of 10.
Many children born here who speak a language different than English at home speak with an accent and use non-standard phrases (not bad--just different), even into their adulthood. Black people may know more about the Black ... See more never develop your L1 to an educated, sophisticated enough level.
Usually one language is dominant--but it does not really have to be your L1. Many of the immigrant children cannot even read in their L1--when they came here before the age of 10.
Many children born here who speak a language different than English at home speak with an accent and use non-standard phrases (not bad--just different), even into their adulthood. Black people may know more about the Black culture, let's say, which does not mean that a White or an Asian person should be prevented from writing an essay on the Black culture or Longston Hughes, or even becoming an expert on it and teaching it in college.
[Edited at 2014-10-12 12:33 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-10-12 12:49 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London wrote:
Someone once asked Duke Ellington "What is swing?"
The Duke replied "I can't tell you, but I know it when I hear it".
The same goes for English when it's spoken by a native English speaker, be it any form of English (Australian, Irish, South African, American etc.). They may or may not be well-educated and literate, but that doesn't matter; their version of English will be natural.
[Edited at 2014-10-12 11:32 GMT]
No matter the language, some native speakers sound at least a little odd to fellow native speakers. Like I said in that lengthy post, the language being English makes it easier because most speakers aren't native anyway, be they good or bad. In a low-diffusion language there is no such crutch and you gotta live with the knowledge that those guys really are your fellow native speakers, in the absence of solid proof to the contrary.
Samuel Murray wrote:
This is a key point, Bernhard. Nativeness is about immersion, not about birth.
Absolutely not! This goes against all findings of modern Linguistics. Some well established facts of Linguistics are that a) at the moment of birth, we are potentially capable of learning and speaking any language and any number of languages simultaneously (although scholars frequently mention 5 as the highest number of possible native languages), b) our specialisation in the language(s) that surround(s) us begins as babies and ends at a very early age, and c) our linguistic capabilities dimish as we grow, and no matter how hard we try, we will never be as proficient in a learned language than in the language(s) we grew up with. [/quote]
Isn't the 5 connected with individual intelligence, though (or even already 3 or 4)? Re: c), I'd say it explains individual potential pretty well but is pretty useless in comparing two different individuals. In short, the mere fact you can't reach some sort of peak potential doesn't mean you can't become excellent and closer to perfection than most real native speakers. Again, this is something that eludes modern linguistics and modern linguists. I blame simplified heuristics for that (reduction of real thinking in favour of somewhat mechanical application of patterns that are easy to follow).
The native speaker (i.e. he who was immersed in the language during a critical thought-process forming period of his life) with no further education and training will have a linguistic advantage over the non-native speaker with no further education and training,
Exactly.
but will he also have a linguistic advantage over non-native speakers with education and training?
Probably where you need to sound like a native speaker without education or training. Something which is admittedly very hard to pull off when you aren't one.
The fact that untrained individuals develop this skill naturally if they are born into it does not mean that the skill can never be obtained by other indivuals through training or eventual exposure.
Yup. Nor are everyone's limits the same. Some 60% of your own theoretical max might be 90% or 30% of someone else's. This difference in individual aptitude is typically ignored by modern linguists, to a point where their own lay clients probably know better.
The ability to write good sentences, the ability to write idiomatic expressions, etc is the result of a combination of genetics and education. Some people are simply good at it, others are bad at it. Being a native speaker will only make you write better idiomatic language than a non-native speaker if both of you have the same talent (or lack of talent) for it and if both of your talents were developed further (through training, experience, etc) to the same degree.
Yup. Though re:
The moment the non-native speaker has a better talent or has had his talent better developed, the native speaker's advantage is gone.
I'd say that due to how individual skill levels and differences between them are far from being linear (i.e. given as they overlap on so many levels), an ordinary native speaker could still be very useful to a developed non-native writer wishing to 'keep it real', just like highly qualified non-native proofreaders can often resolve a good number of issues native writers fail to escape.
I propose that the text created by a native speaker will be more idiomatic and will sound more "native" to the target audience. From experience (with myself and others) I can tell you that that is simply not true.
Yes, that depends on the writer. (And the audience, to some extent.)
Preston Decker wrote:
I'm pretty sure some of the emphasis by agencies on finding native speakers is to avoid having to spend money on proofreading, even if this comes at the expense of quality.
That too, I guess.
Compare this with an agency that hires a specialist translator whose grammatical abilities are not at a native level. They may produce a very good translation that is technically superior to the one produced by the non-specialist native, but proofing the translation is going to cost the agency more, giving it reason to go with the native.
At a really high near-native level, you'll see far better writing than a 95% majority of native speakers can produce, but still with one or two 'non-nativisms' per text, which may not even be errors in the strict sense but rather some very odd choices, so you can't even be sure. In many cases real mistakes will be much fewer, and the overall style and quality much better, but there will still be some of those highly occasional and situational microblunders. This would be a complete and utter non-issue if translations continued to be professionally proofread and edited by and for people who understand what that job is about (notably not an adversarial process aimed at renegotiating the price).
Of course this whole scenario is really only applicable for technical fields rather than something like marketing, but I think it's still useful to consider.
Depends. Those expensive foreign-language courses can be quite successful at drilling good style into a capable and determined student. (That it might be easier for such a person to write popular science articles than to shop for groceries is a different story.)
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
I regularly get texts to translate from Dutch. All written by native speakers, I think. They contain spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes and the last one I got on Friday was, genuinely, barely comprehensible. Now, if that is the standard of writing these days, then it won't be long before this gets into the 'native' translation market. The professors teaching the use of Dutch, common mistakes and what have you (a style course, so to say) are fighting a losing battle.
Yeah. I believe the Old Guard, educated when correct grammar, syntax and punctuation still mattered, have an inherent advantage over people educated in the new language-teaching paradigm, where 'communication' is what matters, i.e. just simply getting understood or rather an illusion of it, as will often be the case.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:28
Member (2008)
Italian to English
FFS I've had it up to here with this nit-picking hair-splitting argy-bargy. It's gone completely OTT.
TTFN !
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Removed per poster's request.
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Tom in London wrote: Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
..... customers who --whatever the capricious reasons-- want native translators. I hardly think the reasons are capricious.
I was just being ironic! I have a deep respect for customers' preferences, the same way I want to be free to choose freely when I pay for something.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Removed per poster's request.
| | Some customers may also prefer women | Oct 12, 2014 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote: Tom in London wrote: Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
..... customers who --whatever the capricious reasons-- want native translators. I hardly think the reasons are capricious. I was just being ironic! I have a deep respect for customers' preferences, the same way I want to be free to choose freely when I pay for something.
or blondes, or African American women. What about that? They may also state their reasons for it--yet that would be illegal. Or, women only translating articles and books about women, men about any men issues. This may all make sense to some extent--but it would all be illegal as a filtering option.
[Edited at 2014-10-12 13:14 GMT]
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| Nothing serious | Oct 12, 2014 |
with all my respect for your good intentions, Tom-I think most of those people do not know what they are talking about--with regard to things as simple as the register, and non-native versus native mistakes--of whom: beginner learners? I hope it is not an American site because it would look too biased-- as to Rosetta stone--a totally useless software in my opinion--maybe if you had 200 years to learn the language, and pretty expensive, too.
[Edited at 2014-10-12 13:26 GMT]
| | | | | It makes me sad | Oct 12, 2014 |
to think how much sooner I'd be done with my project tonight if not for this thread.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 22:28
Chinese to English
| Read that other thread from two years ago... | Oct 12, 2014 |
Preston Decker wrote: to think how much sooner I'd be done with my project tonight if not for this thread.
...and weep for us all.
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