---
title: 'Native speakerism and Hegel'
url: 'https://rethunk.englishup.me/hegel'
markdown: 'https://rethunk.englishup.me/hegel.md'
date: '2020-10-03'
description: 'Native speakerism and Hegel A learner wants (the normative status) to speak a target language well. What is involved in such a commitment? Who does the learner recognise in turn as someone who speaks the target language well in the sense the learner is committed to as being one? That is who is goin…'
---

# Native speakerism and Hegel

A learner wants (the normative status) to speak a target language well. What is involved in such a commitment? Who does the learner recognise in turn as someone who speaks the target language well in the sense the learner is committed to as being one? That is who is going to have the authority to determine whether the learner has succeeded in speaking the target language well?

What the learner is commiting themselves to is not completely up to them, it depends on who they recognise as speaking the target language well. But then whether the learner speaks the target language well depends on whether those others recognise the learner in turn. This is the model that Hegel says (as recounted by Brandom, 2020) we should understand as being a normative subject at all. Having the authority to commit oneself is something you have only if you are recognised as having it by those who you recognise as having it.

To this social picture of normativity Hegel adds the historical notion - the way our attitudes can institute norms that can genuinely bind us so that we have invested the authority over the correctness of our utterances in something else is telling a retrospective, recollective story about a sequence of our attitudes. It is here that it is possible to wedge in the historical aspects of how the drive for nation states drew along with it the notion of one country = one language.

This nation state story is noted by Michelle Ocriciano in answer to Hugh Dellar's question asking what can be done in the fight against native-speakerism:

> "We need to discuss history in TESOL programs so a wider audience understand that monoglossic ideologies and views are a social-historical-economic construct. They were purposefully created at the time of the creation of the nation-state." [https://twitter.com/mi\_ocriciano/status/1311785779849437185](https://twitter.com/mi_ocriciano/status/1311785779849437185)

And here we can also highlight who people in contact language situations such as English as a Lingua Franca recognise as authoritative (i.e. non-native speakers of the contact language and not necessarily native speakers). Other situations include English as a Medium of Instruction where non-native teachers of content may be recognised by learners as authoritative or English for Specific Purposes such as Aviation English where non-native users may be recognised as authoritative.

In general then learners can choose who they want to recognise as authoritative. So if a learner decides rationally that they want to recognise native speaker teachers as authoritative they can do so. And advocates for non-native speaker teachers can equally work the social-historical and domain aspects which can lead to learners wanting to recognise non-native speaker teachers as authoritative rather than native speaker teachers.

**References:**

Brandom, R. (2020) [Audio of Week 7](https://pitt.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx) 2:01:30 - 2:06:40. Anti-Representationalism as Neopragmatism and Global Expressivism. University of Pittsburgh delivered September 29, 2020.

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