Alan Davies: Ostensive Views, Other Views and Native Speakerism, and the Implications of the Latter for English Language Teaching

This paper sets out to answer two questions by characterizing and deconstructing Alan Davies’s seminal views and concepts - especially his ostensive views and his native speakerism - within the context of applied linguistics. Arguing that these are some of Davies’s seminal views and concepts, it offers a philosophical framing of his ostensive views and his other views by maintaining that they entail elements of philosophizing and fragments of the postmodern turn in the manner in which they are articulated in relation to applied linguistics. The paper also argues that Davies’s views of native speakerism are constructed within a classical binary perspective and, thus, can be construed to be fostering othering non-native speakers. In addition, it situates native speakerism within de-coloniality, epistemic break and de-linking, arguing that a de-colonial framework lends itself well to critiquing native speakerism. On this basis, it contends that there is a need to reconceptualize the notion of native speakerism that resonates with a de-colonial perspective. Lastly, the paper offers implications de-coloniality has for ELT.