IN language use, description and teaching, the native speaker plays a very important role. Yet sometimes, the role he or she plays becomes overstated, even quasi-mythical, if I may say. The native speaker, most especially in English language teaching, assumes a very powerful position that may be misplaced actually, most especially in line with the ongoing paradigm shift in English language teaching, along the lines of the notion of world Englishes espoused by the late professor Braj Kachru and in the context of multilingual diversity in the globalized world.

In my column last Sunday, I talked about the three circles of English. Today, I argue that any speaker from any of those could be a native speaker of English. A Filipino born and raised in the Philippines with no exposure to English outside the country can be a native speaker. The foremost problem in how most people understand who the native speaker is, is that he or she is often perceived to be monolingual and, in the case of English, someone coming from the traditional English-using countries. However, the native speaker need not be any one of those. In fact, the contemporary native speaker is multilingual — someone who is able to use English alongside other languages and use it smoothly and strategically to fulfill their daily activities and life goals.