Authenticity – what is the ‘real’ definition?

Authenticity has been considered an important aspect of language teaching for many decades. Despite having a long history and a broad set of references in the literature, authenticity continues to arouse controversy and debate; there have even been debates as to whether authenticity is even possible in the language classroom, see for example Widdowson (Reference Widdowson1978). It does, however, seem that researchers and practitioners agree that for the most part authenticity is something beneficial and thus desirable in the classroom (see for example Pinner, Reference Pinner2013a, Reference Pinnerb), although I would argue that this is possibly because the term authentic is loaded with connotations. If one thing is branded authentic and another is branded as inauthentic, clearly the inauthentic item is less desirable in ordinary circumstances. I would not want to be told that my Swiss watch was inauthentic, or that my relationship with a friend was inauthentic. Likewise, it seems apparent that a student would not want to hear that the language they were producing or learning from was inauthentic either.

That authentic materials can be more motivating is also a common argument in calls for greater authenticity in language learning. Gilmore (Reference Gilmore2007) states that authentic materials are generally seen to be more interesting, hence more motivating. Further, Peacock (Reference Peacock1997) in a study involving elementary learners of English, found that authentic materials were more motivating and produced more on-task involvement. There is wide agreement that authenticity is a good thing. What is under debate, even after many decades of theoretical discussion and analysis, is what exactly constitutes authentic materials or language. Widdowson (Reference Widdowson1978) famously makes the distinction between authentic materials and genuine materials. Here, genuineness relates to an absolute property of the text whereas authenticity is relative to the way the learner engages with the material and their relationship to it. This is related to what Hung & Victor Chen (Reference Hung and Victor Chen2007: 149) refer to as extrapolation techniques, which they point out assume ‘similarity between abstracted concepts and the actual phenomena’. In other words, removing something from its context, extracting a learning material and leaving the reason for engaging with it behind endangers the concept of authenticity. Widdowson believes that authenticity should be defined as ‘natural language behaviour’ (Reference Widdowson1990: 45) and he goes on to state that it is hard to see how it could be defined in any other way. The problem with defining authenticity, as many who have attempted to do so have pointed out, is that any definition of authenticity has to remain conceptually loose in order to encompass the many situations and contexts in which authentic language arises. The problem here is that for teachers in EFL contexts, such academic descriptions of authenticity may be difficult to grasp, and teachers may look at their textbooks or learning materials and wonder to what extent these materials are authentic. As stated earlier, because of the strong connotations of the word ‘authentic’, teachers using materials which they believe to lack authenticity may find this leads to efficacy issues.

In a state-of-the-art article, Gilmore (Reference Gilmore2007: 98) identified eight inter-related definitions of authenticity from the literature. These are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Gilmore's eight inter-related definitions.

Gilmore, in summarising the definitions of authenticity, captures some of his frustration in writing about it when he asks whether the term ought to be abandoned completely as it faces the danger of being ‘too elusive to be useful’ (2007: 98). However he decides rather to limit the definition to objectifiable criteria following Morrow, who states that authenticity is ‘real language produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message’ (1977: 13). This definition is certainly agreeable in that it encompasses both the source of the text and the function, but the definition is dependent on the term ‘real’. The question that must then be asked is what constitutes ‘real’ language?

As Widdowson's (Reference Widdowson1996) comment cited earlier in this paper shows, the term ‘real’ is often used to refer to ‘native speakers’ or the target language community, however, as I have shown, this is highly problematic. Due to the somewhat overlapping areas of culture in today's developed societies, where cultures ‘continually influence each other’ (Pavlenko, Reference Pavlenko and Cook2002: 280), any ‘native speaker’ grounded definitions are untenable, especially for English. This is not just because the majority of English speakers are L2 speakers (Graddol, Reference Graddol1997), but also the majority of English teachers are L2 speakers. Current estimates place the figure at around 80% of EFL teachers being L2 speakers (Braine, Reference Braine2010). Furthermore, the aims and motivations of many language learners are not necessarily specific to integrating with a particular culture, but in fact people learn English in order to be part of a wider voice, in order to have a key to unlock global communication (Dörnyei & Ushioda, Reference Dörnyei and Ushioda2009). Perhaps then, the term ‘real’ refers to what Morrow (Reference Morrow and Holden1977) indicates in his definition as there being a genuine function or purpose in the interactions, beyond merely speaking for the sake of it or practising a drill. This is echoed by Tomlinson & Masuhara's definition, which states that authentic materials are ‘designed not to transmit declarative knowledge about the target language but rather to provide an experience of the language in use’ (Reference Tomlinson and Masuhara2010: 400, italics added).

Thus, the term is defined here from a social-interactional viewpoint which does not omit the issue of culture from the definition by imagining it to be a clearly defined and closed off community from which we can simply extract samples of ‘real’ language. The definition also, quite succinctly, provides us with a framework from which it is possible to disregard what, by implication, constitutes inauthentic language – namely the transmission of declarative knowledge. Instead, authenticity is understood to mean that the linguistic source material is directly linked with the linguistic output of the students and that it is not contrived purely for the purpose of explaining or demonstrating an isolated aspect of the language. Rather, it is designed to give the users an experience in which they will be exposed to the target language (in this case English) and have a reason for using it. In many ways, this definition is an extension of Morrow's (Reference Morrow and Holden1977) which emphasised realness. Even these early definitions like Morrow (Reference Morrow and Holden1977) and Widdowson (Reference Widdowson1978) place the emphasis on language not for language's sake but using language as a ‘tool’ for other meaningful exchanges, which shows that the focus of authenticity has been distancing itself from the ‘native-speaker’ definition for some time. Despite this, authenticity remains culture-bound (Matsuda, Reference Matsuda2003; Tan, Reference Tan2005; Suzuki, Reference Suzuki2011), and perhaps as a result there is still very much a gap between L1 and L2 speakers of English. As Clark & Paran (Reference Clark and Paran2007: 407, italics added) explain,

It is for this reason that realigning the concept of authenticity to fully include L2 varieties is essential in order to move the mainstream of EFL learners and teachers into a position that aligns with the current status of English as an international language. Interestingly, it is not just specifically L1 users of English who are maintaining their privileged position, but in fact many L2 users also share the prejudice against themselves by elevating the native-speaker model and native-defined concept of authenticity, specifically being self-conscious of language usage errors (Moussu & Llurda, Reference Moussu and Llurda2008). This process is called ‘self-discrimination’ (Reves & Medgyes, Reference Reves and Medgyes1994) and this reduces self-image which subsequently damages actual language performance, thus creating a downward spiral in teacher efficacy, self-image and motivation. L1 English teachers may often make a mistake with the language or not know how to answer a question, but this rarely impacts on their self-image (at least for experienced teachers) whereas when a non-native speaker or L2 English teacher makes a mistake or reveals that they ‘do not know everything about the English language, their teaching abilities are often immediately questioned’ (Moussu & Llurda, Reference Moussu and Llurda2008: 323). It is my belief that such ‘language error nit-picking’ and elevating the status of ‘native speakers’ stems from the central concept of authenticity, since authenticity is a vital and established aspect of the language teaching tradition (Gilmore, Reference Gilmore2007). It seems that the concept of authenticity is in need of being realigned in order to offer a more inclusive concept which incorporates L2 speakers of English more overtly.

The persistence of culturally embedded definitions

Perhaps the simplicity of the native-speaker definition of authenticity is one reason for it being hard to shake off. One possible flaw in the wider definitions described above is that they are too broad, and almost any of the discussions taking place in the language classroom could therefore be viewed as authentic. The teacher asks the student ‘what's your name?’ and the student replies with their own name, and this would count as authentic. Personally, I do not find fault with this concept; to deny that authentic language can take place in the language classroom without any native speakers being present is to deny the very validity of teaching and learning in the classroom context. My argument is that the issue is not so much in the definition of authenticity, but in the way authenticity is viewed as a kind of linear spectrum with two binary options at either end; this newspaper comes from the UK and is therefore fully authentic whereas this textbook was written for use in the classroom and is therefore not authentic, and the language we produce in the classroom is somewhere in the middle. Because, as Gilmore (Reference Gilmore2007) points out, the concept of authenticity supports multiple definitions which are inter-related, authenticity might be better viewed as a continuum; one which takes into account the purposes of the discourse and the context in which it takes place. This concept is not a new one (Hung & Victor Chen, Reference Hung and Victor Chen2007), and indeed distinctions have already been made between authentic language in the classroom and authentic language outside the classroom (Widdowson, Reference Widdowson1978). It has also been proposed that authenticity be defined in respect to the reason for its being used, what Coyle et al. (Reference Coyle, Hood and Marsh2010: 5) refer to as ‘authenticity of purpose’. By viewing authenticity as belonging to a scale on a continuum, students and learners are encouraged to make their own decisions about how authentic something is, and therefore authenticity becomes an individually validated and socially mediated concept.

The authenticity continuum

In order to incorporate the majority of speakers of English into the concept of authenticity whilst also allowing for such important factors as motivation, autonomy and identity, I believe that authenticity might best be considered not as a binary set of absolutes, or even as a grey area with two extremes on either side, but as a continuum with both social and contextual dimensions, as represented in Figure 2. Please note that as this is a continuum, it is not intended to be linear but, borrowing from Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein1953), rather it is designed to represent a landscape in which a position on one of the axes does not exclude the existence of the other. The horizontal axis represents the social dimension of authenticity, at one end the learner or individual and their needs, linguistic ability and motivation to learn, at the other the target language use community. This might be an L1 country such as the USA or UK, or it might be the international community where English is used as a tool for communication in multilingual contexts, or it could even be a workplace where English will be needed in order to interact with colleagues. The vertical dimension of the continuum is meant to represent the context of language use. The continuum presents the two contexts which are likely to be most relevant to language learning; the classroom and the real world where the communication takes place. Although the diagram of the continuum plots each dimension in a linear way, each aspect has a relationship and possible overlap with the others.

Figure 2. The authenticity continuum.

This might be a useful continuum when materials are being selected or adapted for the classroom because it invites both the teacher and the learner to question their relationship to the content being used and how it will relate to them and their personal learning aims. One purpose of the continuum is to allow for the importance of self and the process of engagement with the materials and the language (van Lier, Reference van Lier1996). In this way, the continuum incorporates autonomy and identity, which Ushioda (Reference Ushioda, Murray, Gao and Lamb2011) notes is vital in motivating learners. Ushioda (Reference Ushioda, Murray, Gao and Lamb2011) advocates a person in context relational view of motivation in her paper, and in many ways the continuum tries to encompass both the individual identity of the learner and bridge that with the often distant reality of the target language culture. This is especially important in EFL contexts, where learners may not know much about the culture, often learning in compulsory language classes. In this respect, motivation and authenticity are closely related, and hence through experiencing the materials and language in a process of personal engagement, the students would hopefully find authentic materials more motivating if they can relate to them as individuals.

The continuum was devised as a way of guiding teachers and materials writers to consider tasks and learning materials from other dimensions and contexts, and as a way of validating those contexts. By demonstrating the multi-faceted nature of authenticity simply as a visual diagram, I hope to be able to communicate that there is no best material or type of material or even best model to learn English. It was also my intention that this idea should be communicated back to the learners, as quite often learners themselves view authenticity as something belonging to the realm of the target language community (Pinner, Reference Pinner2013a). By informing the students that the language they produce both inside and outside the classroom is valid and authentic I hope that this will help to empower learners in EFL contexts and enable them to engage more with the learning process. This would be a useful area for further enquiry and research.

In taking the view of authenticity as an abstract concept which has various degrees and can be approached in different ways, it is my intention to help break authenticity into what Gilmore advocated when he called for ‘objectifiable criteria’ (2007: 98). Although these reductions and compartmentalisations may seem to complicate the matter rather than to simplify it, I believe that doing so will actually help reflect the interactions of authenticity in the no longer clear-cut domains in which English is used throughout the developed world as a tool for international communication.