Response for The Privilege of the Nonnative Speaker

According to Kramsh (1997), “Native speakership was viewed as an uncontroversial privilege of birth.

Those who were born into a language were considered its native speakers, with grammatical intuitions

that nonnative speakers did not have” (p.363). With this statement, the author mentions that most of us

consider native speakers to be people who are born in a certain territory and who live day by day with a

specific grammar that allows them to construct the language. However, he emphasizes that the level of

language is not the same for everyone, even if they belong to the same society. Some aspects that he

considers are important on our language development are regional, occupational, generational, or class-

related. The native speakers are made rather than born since they acquire a social and cultural context

trough the education that allows them to understand different allusions. The speakership as the result

of a particular education because they have internalized the values, beliefs, myths of the dominant

ideologies propagated by schools and other educational institutions. (Bourdieu, n.d.) (p.43).

About this affirmation, Zagada (2020), comments that the language you speak reflects what your values

and beliefs are. So, she supports the idea that language is built through education and especially the

environment in which one grows or develops. In his article More Than Words: How Language Affects The

Way We Think, he emphasizes the relationship that language has with culture, which allows each person

to express themselves differently and with different points of view. Kramsch also mentions the visions of

language and their differences, which allows establishing a relationship between his opinion and that

expressed by Zagada. "Language has traditionally been seen as a standardized system, not as a social

and cultural practice. Viewing language as a practice may lead to a rethinking of the subject position of

foreign language … it shows how learners construct for themselves a linguistic and social identity...

"(p.360). Through this statement, the author comments that language, according to the new point of

view, is considered an identity builder and not only a way of communicating, since it involves cultural
and social aspects that allow the individual to interpret and understand different types of information,

related to specific social aspects of a delimited territory.

In addition to contrasting the various views of language and its meaning today, the author also mentions

foreign students, by affirming that today the expectations for them are to approach the native speakers’

communicative skills. Besides, the literature’ students have to be better readers of a foreign literature.

Besides, in these days people assumed that the main motivation for learning a foreign language is to

become part of the country culture or its society. Sometimes, people of those places don’t want it. So,

the pleasure of annexing a foreign language doesn’t consist in identifying with the insiders.

According to Williams (n.d.) in his article called “How Culture is Important in Language Learning”, “If

someone truly wants to master a second language, knowledge of cultural contexts that underpin the

language he’s learning can provide you with invaluable insights into certain phrases that are often

spoken by natives of a particular cultural group.” Through this statement, Williams tries to emphasize

the great importance of becoming involved in a culture when learning a language, because in the long

term it will allow us to understand situations that include certain types of historical or country-related

information. About these types of statements, Kramsch mentions the existence of different types of

societies that do not allow the inclusion of foreigners, that is, they are ancient and very closed cultures

such as Japan, Korea, India, etc. Who believe that learning their languages and culture will allow them to

reach a higher level in the current globalization of the world and increase tourism in their countries.

However, they do not consider it appropriate to include foreigners in their communities because they

believe that there is a high level of cultural differences.

The author also mentions the importance of multilingualism and its benefits in literature and ease of

communication; “The users of tongues other than their own can reveal unexpected ways of dealing with

the cross-cultural clashes they encounter as they migrate between languages. Their appropriation of
foreign languages enables them to construct linguistic and cultural identities in the interstices of

national languages and on the margins of monolingual speakers' territories.” He mentions that

multilinguistic people can use their language to explain themselves in both places and construct their

own identity and also allows them to have greater freedom of expression. The author also explains that

it’s a well-used source in literature since it gives aesthetic, expressive value to words that are usually

viewed as having a purely pragmatic, communicative function, creating new discourse communities

whose aerial existence monolingual speakers hardly suspect.

I personally believe that what the author mentioned has had a great impact on people's vision of

language and its function that goes beyond the communicative. Likewise, it has allowed us to contrast

our vision of learning a new language and, above all, the relevance that this has in the cultural and social

aspects of a nation. The author allows us to establish a new opinion through different situations and

experiences raised throughout the opinion column that allow us to see the situation from different

points of view.
 References

Kramsch, C. (1997). Guest column: The privilege of the nonnative speaker. Publications of the Modern

Language Association of America, 112(3), 359–369. https://doi.org/10.1632/s0030812900060673

Williams, D. (2019, abril 10). How Culture is Important in Language Learning. Toppan Digital Language.

https://toppandigital.com/translation-blog/culture-important-language-learning/

Zagada, M. (2020, marzo 13). More than words: How language affects the way we think. GoFLUENT

Blog. https://www.gofluent.com/blog/how-language-affects-the-way-we-think/