L2 \u27Native\u27 and L1 \u27Non-native\u27 Speakers of English : A Perceptual Criterion of Native-likeness

To verify the increasingly common notion that advanced L2 users can pass for native speakers, this article analyses comparatively late leamers, early bilinguals and monolingual speakers of English with regard to the degree of native-likeness perceived by Ll English speakers in New Zealand. No late leamers sounded native to the judges in a test enviromuent, but the bilinguals were variably rated near the boundary between simultaneous and sequential bilingualism. Notably, a monolingual speaker of a lesser-known variety of English and bilinguals of Outer Circle English were often perceived as L2 accented. The yardstick for nati ve-likeness is affected by judges\u27 familiarity with the target accents; identification as \u27native speakers\u27 differs greatly in listeners\u27 ears, regardless of the speaker\u27s actual proficiency