Although the idea of native speaker-hood appears to be a simple and neutral linguistic concept, the contestations that are taking place in the discourse of English as a global language point to the not-so-neutral (if not not-so-innocent) nature of this concept. English has today become an umbrella term that encompasses a large number of English language varieties. However, despite the presence of so many different varieties of English in the world, only a few varieties like Standard British and General American are considered the “proper” forms of the language. This position of theirs as the “proper” varieties of the language invariably entails a sense of power and prestige. This idealization of one or a few select varieties gives the implication that the numerous other varieties (most of which have come to be known as New Varieties of English, or simply ‘New Englishes’) are just aberrations, pathologies, misuses/abuses, substandard/non-standard and illegitimate varieties of the language. The people who speak the prestige varieties are considered the native speakers of English, while the speakers of the other varieties are generally seen as substandard/non-standard/not-so-competent/incompetent speakers of the language.
If it is the case that a language variety embodies the interests/world view of its speakers, the elevation of a few select varieties to the position of the “proper” form of the language invariably results in a glorification of the interests/world view associated with those varieties, which in turn results in a glorification of the speakers (of those varieties) themselves. Although, technically speaking, they are just the speakers of a particular variety or varieties of the language, the idea of native speaker-hood assigns them a sense of authority and ownership not only over the particular variety/varieties they speak, but also over the whole language. This gives them an undue advantage over the speakers of the other varieties of the same language. In the case of the English language, which is the most dominant language of the present day world characterized by transnational capitalism, this undue advantage creates unbridgeable gaps and disparities among different communities in the world.
In the case of most of the countries where New Englishes are spoken, they received English as part of the (mainly British) colonial project. The people in those countries encountered English as the language of the colonizer/conqueror/oppressor who came to subjugate/suppress their cultures. In almost all the colonies the colonizers managed to create a comprador bourgeois class (which gradually became the local elite of those countries) to whom they gave the English language, thereby creating a new form of stratification based on class and language. Since then, English has been part of the social, political, economic, and cultural reality of those countries. The language based stratification in which English played a central role has caused immense hardships and suffering for a large majority of the locals. After having withstood the test of time, today they have come up with their own varieties of English (by nativizing it) that show significant variation at the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels of the language. Nonetheless, dominant linguistic concepts like native speaker-hood prevent them from occupying their hard-earned position.
If it is the case that all the varieties of English are in a state of constant change and the prestige varieties are no exception to this rule, the current understanding of the concept of native speaker-hood serves a political and ideological purpose rather than a linguistic purpose. Therefore, if it is to become a primarily linguistic concept detached of the narrow interests of a particular hegemonic centre it should be redefined in such a way that it could be used to assess the language competence of a speaker in relation to the particular variety s/he speaks.