[bbqweasel]

I need a little help here. I'm doing a presentation in class on native speakers in a week, and I would like to gather any extra information I can. So...how would you define a native speaker of any language? Do you have to be weaned on the language in order to be a native speaker of it? Or is it a matter of competency? If a person has achieved native-like fluency in a second language, does he count as a native speaker of it, even if he uses it daily and hardly ever used his first language anymore?

I realize that most of these questions are rather ambiguous, but i would just like some input from teachers and a few links to articles concerning this subject. :)

One more thing: I came across a mention of an interesting experiment done by an American university where they
"did a study where they played the same tape to listeners and asked them to rate how well they understood what they heard. They also tested them on the factual content of what was spoken about. The same tape each time, but different photographs of the speaker. When the speaker was portrayed as someone non-white, the listeners not only rated the speaker as less understandable; but they also tested lower on the factual content of what was said! That is, they actually had less of an understanding of what was said simply because they thought the speaker was not a "native speaker"!"

Does anyone know who performed this experiment and whether there are any links to articles written concerning this? Thanks!