Sharbawi: Brunei English - A Badge of Modern Bruneian Identity

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Salbrina Sharbawi's presentation on "Brunei English - A Badge of Modern Bruneian Identity" at the 2022 ISLE summer school
Abstract
The story of English in Brunei is one that entails some interesting twists and turns. In the early 1980s, it was predicted that the language would see a status demotion, from that of a second language to a foreign one. Scholarly findings in the 1990s, however, reported English to be the second most used language after the nation’s lingua franca, Brunei Malay. At that time, descriptive accounts of the English spoken by educated Bruneians alluded to some similarities with the British variety, which is unsurprising given Brunei’s former status as a British Protectorate. Despite its growing popularity, scholars still maintained that English would never acquire a first language status, largely because Malay dominated almost every aspect of the Bruneian life. Two decades later, reports began to surface of ethnically Malay Bruneians who speak English as a first language. Many more are reported to prefer the use of English to Brunei Malay in their day-to-day interactions. The English spoken by young and educated Bruneians is also said to be Americanised. While rhoticity was noted to be the only feature of American English (AmE) exhibited in the speech of the Bruneians in studies conducted in the late and early 2010s, recent findings have shown that other well-known AmE features, such as intervocalic tapping, are also rife. A closer inspection, however, reveals that these are not simply a case of AmE shaping the phonology of the English in Brunei, but rather, a linguistic change at play that involves a variety of linguistic processes resulting in a Southeast Asian English variety with uniform idiosyncrasies. This talk explores the developmental path of English in Brunei, from a language of the colonisers to one that is now regarded a badge of the modern Bruneian identity.
Readings
Deterding, D. and Salbrina, S. 2013. Brunei English: A New Variety in a Multilingual Society. Dordrecht: Springer.
Haji-Othman, N.O., McLellan, J. and Deterding, D. (eds.). 2016. The Use and Status of Language in Brunei Darussalam: A Kingdom of Unexpected Linguistic Diversity. Singapore: Springer.
McLellan, J. and Chin, G.V.S. (eds.). 2016. English in Brunei Darussalam [Special section]. World Englishes, 35, 489-634.
Ożóg, C. 1996. ‘The unplanned use of English: The case of Brunei Darussalam’. In P.W. Martin, C. Ożóg and G. Poedjosoedarmo (eds.), Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center. 156-172.
Salbrina, S. 2020. ‘An English-centric monolingual Brunei? Predictions and reality’. Asian Englishes 22: 257-281.
Salbrina, S. 2021. ‘English use in Brunei: Investigating the Gen Z’. Asian Englishes: 1-25.
Salbrina, S. (in press). ‘The Americanisation of English in Brunei’. World Englishes.
Salbrina, S. and Jaidin, J.H. 2019. ‘Brunei’s SPN21English language-in-education policy: A macro-to-micro evaluation’. Current Issues in Language Planning, 21: 175-201.
Salbrina, S. and Zayani, Z.A. (2021). ‘Language and the Malay Muslim identity: An insight into Brunei’. Journal of Islamic Governance. Thought Paper Series No.6: 1-8.