The Magician's Dissapearing Act in SLA

There is an uprising these days in SLA research it seems. And much of it is to do with terminology. I remember sitting in class, hearing one day, how the words "native speaker" are no longer "acceptable". Rather, they are "novice" speakers.

I, personally, find this ridiculous. Granted, I understand the reasoning of the "local" and the need for a definition of the Community of Practice etc etc etc.. but still, to remove this 'name' seems to be more than a redefinition- it appears to be the removal of a standard; that of... what we would call a "native speaker".

(According to the new definition, I am an "expert speaker" while my non-native friends are "novice speakers". The irony is, that they are more expert than I am. I ought to be called a "native novice" and they, a "non-native expert")

I remember running across this also in one of my research articles (Hall?) about multicompetence and bilingualism. There, again, they argued that the term needs to be done away with. And in their discourse, the alluded to how the notion of interlanguage is also dismissed - for without comparison to a native speaker, the L2 learner can be seen to be competent and not 'a failed L2 native speaker'. (Citation to follow).

Ok. So you change the name Native Speaker. Does that change the fact that there does exist such a standard that is considered "native english"? NO. change the label, but the concept still exists. Yes, that standard may not be accepted by all peoples now, but does that change the fact that it exists? no! It still exists. You simply have taken away it's label.

But what will happen next? Well, if (and I doubt it) the field starts to take on the word native to mean something else (or in my article, multicompetence) people will start to use that word and start to look that 'direction'. As soon as they think in that direction, that label (concept) comes up and their minds are redirected. And the real concept.. because it no longer has a label.. disappears. Not that it really disappears - it's still there - but people will 'walk around it' because they are being 'redirected' by the new words.

See... by changing terminology, and changing words, and using certain words frequently, (and have them "accepted" in the field), you are working magic. A disappearing act.

And in the research field where authority is when big name so-and -so cites so-and-so, who cites so-and-so, you are 'bound' by a web of published material. And so the pressure is to remain 'in the stream'.

It's a subtle magic disappearing act. I suppose it's the "out of sight, out of mind", or in this case, "out of my vocab, out of my mind". The only problem is, even if one can't see it,  it still exists.