A non-native speaker refers to someone who has another native tongue than the language being used. For example, English language. A non-native speaker in here refers to a person who speaks English as a second or foreign language. So, we can say that a native speaker of English is possibly a British, an American or an Australian whereas a non-native speaker of English will probably be a Malaysian, Japanese or a Mexican. These non-native speakers have their own respective purposes in speaking English, for example, communication purpose (lingua franca), business purpose, travelling and others. But, there are differences between native and non-native speaker. They are; a) Pronunciation b) Fluency c) Grammar and d) Affective Factors.
PRONOUNCIATION
There are always distinction of native speaker and non-native speaker in terms of pronunciation. Non-native speaker tends to display imperfect pronunciations such as creating their own pronunciation of words which was possibly from the phonological rules from their first language. Due to the differences of phonological rules in different languages, non-native speakers tend to adapt their primary language phonological rules to their second or foreign language. For example, non-native speakers of English do not have a tendency to distinguish between [θ] and [t]. For example, thank is pronounced as /tæŋk/ instead of /θæŋk/.
According to Ransdell (2003), Asians have difficulties in English phonology than native English speakers. That is the most possible reasons of non-native speakers’ tendency to counterbalance phonological distinctions between English and their first language such as the usage of /l/ and not /r/. The Japanese tends to spell / raɪs/ as / laɪs/ because they do not have [r] in their native language. Other than that, there are also differences in pronunciation in between native and non-native speakers in terms of word stress. Language like English focuses on the correct word stress. Speaking English with different timing pattern can lead to the word stress. Example, word pronounced tomorrow instead of tomorrow and perfect instead of perfect.
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