2. • One reason why differences between New
Englishes and British English are typically
interpreted as deviance from a pre-existing norm
is the assumption that perfect knowledge of a
language comes from the status of being a native
speaker. This concept thus gives Inner Circle
speakers a kind of natural authority: they are
assumed to acquire their language competence
from the crib as it were. This view is increasingly
challenged today, however, and rightly so.
3. • It has been shown that the notion of
nativeness stems very largely from
nineteenth-century nationalism, construing
a special relationship between an individual’s
“pure” national ancestry and his or her
language knowledge (Hackert 2009).
4. • In many countries there are speakers whose command
of the language and exposure to it come close to those
of native speakers, or who would need to be classified
as such. There are speakers who, despite having grown
up for the first few years of their lives with an
indigenous mother tongue, now use mostly or only
English in their daily lives – some linguists would call
them “dominant” or “first” language speakers of
English. Accordingly, Kachru distinguished “functional
nativeness” from “genetic nativeness,” thus arguing
that these “functionally native” speakers are entitled to
claim “ownership” of the language as well.
5. • Increasingly, however, there are also native
speakers of New Englishes in a straightforward
sense. In Africa and Asia many speakers
acquire English (or, in some regions, Pidgin
English) as their “first” language in early
childhood, either exclusively or together with
indigenous tongues.
