Post-Native-Speakerism and the Multilingual Subject: Language Policy, Practice, and Pedagogy

With English as a Lingua Franca on the rise in Europe, more than 350 languages spoken at home in the USA, Asian Englishes used for both business and pleasure from Hong Kong to New Delhi, and quadrilingual signs and announcements appearing in stores and on public transportation across major Japanese cities, native-speakerism would seem to be losing relevance in today’s language teaching, learning, and usage. At the same time, since language and identity as well as real and imagined communities raise questions of status, belonging and agency, other ways of claiming multilingualism as a valid educational option beyond the native–non-native dichotomy need to be considered. This chapter will try to trace several options based on the experience of its authors in various multilingual settings where they were at times “native,” “non-native,” local or third language speakers. The authors will triangulate their research and teaching trajectories with findings from their research studies, relevant trends in academia over time, and pedagogical and policy differences across settings. It will be argued that multilingual speakers are not only on the rise among the recipients of education, but also among its providers, and that a paradigm beyond ideologies which reinforce dichotomous worldviews is needed. By comparing policy issues, contexts of language practice and pedagogical opportunities and challenges in various settings from a multilingual practitioner and policy maker’s standpoint, the authors will propose a praxis-driven theory-building approach to the issue of language ownership and communities of practice