Are you Global Native?

Think about this:
>最近私は、物心ついたときから、グローバルな情報をリアルタイムで共有するのが当たり前で、ネットなどででグローバルに交流ができる環境 にある世代、その結果、何の抵抗も感じずに最初から自然と世界に発信したり、活躍出来る人もいる世代を「グローバルネイティブ」と呼ぶことにしている。物心ついたときから、携帯電話やインターネットなどのITに触れて、何の抵抗もなく使える世代を「デジタルネイティブ」と呼ぶのをもじったわけである。

>”Global Native” describes a generation of people who are naturally accustomed to social network tools and communicate with any connected people on the globe with ease. Global native was coined in line with the idea expressed in Digital Native with some twist.

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/mit_sloan/e/2207d4d322e917c741c5fad11c9abdb6

I agree with her main points but “global native” is a poor choice. When we coin a new word, especially sophisticated one, we need to consider its connotation seriously: a word often means many things so we cannot ignore the other meanings and wrong connotation will dismay readers.

Digital Native makes perfect sense since it suffers no direct/indirect contradiction between these words. Native is also positively associated with natural languages, and computer languages — assembly or higher ones — are essential part of the digital world. In digital native, these two terms are good companions, supporting and enhancing each other. It has vivid resonating connotation.

Now look at “global native”.  We may just know “native” in expressions like “native speakers” or “speak like a native” but it means more than that.

According OED, native means
Noun:
1. a person born in a specified place or associated with a place by birth
2. a local inhabitant
3. [offensive] one of the original inhabitants of a country, esp. a nonwhite as regarded by European colonists or travelers.

Adjective:
1. belonging to a person’s character from birth rather than acquired
2. [Computing] designed for or built into a given system, esp. denoting the language associated with a given processor, computer, or compiler, and programs written in it.

Now think about global. It means
1. of or relating to the whole world; worldwide

Basically, “global” reflects global attributes and native local things. We can see clear contradictions in “global native “: we cannot be associated with a local place and to the globe by birth at the same time, unless we are dealing with extraterrestrial aliens or quantum mechanics. (Please do not go into the Planck time scale.) Native has also well defined meaning in biology and native and global (universal) do not mix well at all. E.g. A native plant was completely wiped out by an invasive non-indegineous plant. Native Americans were decimated by non-native virus, small pox — which was native to the old world. Another thing, “political nativism” is exactly opposite to the idea embedded in “global native”.

So I do not think “global native” is good English and even potential catchy reasoning cannot overturn preexisting toxic connotation. Connotation is the essence of creating a new phrase and if its connotation fails to resonate with its readers then there is no reason to create one. Also it fails a google reverse translation test: A short phrase should return the same meaning when it is translated in one language and is back-translated again. That is one way to see how people of different languages translate an idea. If translations are completely different, then people would not get it. This is very important during an EU sponsored  meeting: do not not underestimate the power of mistranslation of ill-phrased words — you will lose entire audience. Many European and Japanese singers can tell us that they do not really care what they are singing about in English: as long as it sounds good to their ears, it must be good and rational.

Any case, what is wrong with these words for global native??
cosmopolite =world citizens : Greek kosmopolitēs, from kosmos ‘world’ + politēs ‘citizen.’
globalist
universalist

But, I realized that I completely missed her points. She is not talking about cosmopolites and is rather talking about Digital Native 2.0 (global edition).  And I am not in interested in coining a label for people, thought I just did, and hope this oxymoron will not be used in front of global audience. So have a good day.

Advertisement