@ubd.edu.bn
Senior Assistant Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Language and Linguistics, Religious studies
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
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Salbrina Sharbawi and Zayani Zainal Abidin
Oxford University Press
Abstract This chapter describes the current English linguistic situation in Brunei. Previous literature on Brunei English places this Southeast Asian variety in the nativization phase of Schneider’s Dynamic Model of postcolonial English. Among the reasons cited for its location in the third phase is the lack of English use as a lingua franca and the prevailing influence of exonormative norms. Recent works on English use in Brunei, however, point to a changing linguistic scene that sees English growing in terms of popularity and importance, and evidence of this variety developing its own distinctive pronunciation style. This chapter outlines some of the compelling differences in the findings of the previous studies with those of contemporaneous ones, consequently arguing that English in Brunei is currently in active developmental progression towards the fourth phase of endonormative stabilization.
Salbrina Sharbawi and Noor Hasharina Hassan
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Informa UK Limited
Salbrina Sharbawi
World Englishes Wiley
Salbrina Sharbawi
Contemporary Islam Springer Science and Business Media LLC
AbstractThe inexplicable link between the Malay language and Islam has been well-documented in Malaysia. In Brunei, however, this association has not been made explicit and could only be inferred through the state’s stance of utilising only the Malay language for Islamic-related matters, most conspicuously in the Islamic education curriculum. While this practice has been in place since the early days of Islamic education in the country, the changing linguistic situation in Brunei, where English is now more popular than Malay among the younger generation, may require some rethinking of this practice. An earlier study investigating the issues of language and religion in Brunei has found that those who are more English-inclined do not identify strongly with the Muslim identity as their Malay-leaning counterparts. Taking its cue from those findings, the present study extends the investigation in two ways: one, by adding the social variables age, gender and educational background in its analysis; and two, by focusing on the notion of religiosity rather than on religious identity alone. The findings show that age and language proclivity are both predictors of religiosity with older Bruneians displaying greater religiosity than the younger ones. Language also plays a factor such that those who are predisposed to using more English than Malay have fewer manifestations of practices aligned to the Islamic teaching. Gender and educational level, however, have low factor loadings and are not contributory to the measurement of religiosity.
Zayani Zainal Abidin and Salbrina Sharbawi
Asia in Transition Springer Nature Singapore
AbstractRecent findings on language use in Brunei Darussalam have indicated a growing inclination towards the co-use of Malay and English in both social and formal communication. Monolingual English use has also been reported, particularly among young Bruneians and in interactions with their peers. The exclusive use of English appears to be ubiquitous among Bruneians born around the time of the new millennium, the cohort known as Generation Z or zoomers. This chapter seeks to investigate the extent to which the claim of English exclusivity among Bruneian zoomers is true via audio recordings of social interactions between three young women. Informed by discussions of language and social interactions, we examine the zoomers’ perception of social identity through their language practices.
Salbrina Sharbawi
Asian Englishes Informa UK Limited
Salbrina Sharbawi and Shaikh Abdul Mabud
International and Development Education Springer International Publishing
Salbrina Sharbawi
Asian Englishes Informa UK Limited
ABSTRACT This article revisits a 1996 study on the unplanned use of Englishin Brunei, in which it was found that in addition to being regarded as the most important language in the country, Malay was also the dominant code in most of the domains investigated. The conclusion also stated that it was unlikely for English to ever be regarded as a first language by the Bruneians. The current findings differ in substantial ways from the 1996 study such that the role of Malay has diminished and code-switching now dominates in most of the settings. English has also surpassed Malay as the language regarded as most important. A trend appears to be emerging showing a relationship between age and language preference and the relationship was found to be statistically highly significant. It is concluded that should this trend continue, the prediction that Brunei will one day be monolingually English-centric could may well come true.
Salbrina Sharbawi and Jainatul Halida Jaidin
Current Issues in Language Planning Informa UK Limited
ABSTRACT In 2009, Brunei’s Ministry of Education unveiled the National Education System for the twenty-first century, popularly termed the SPN21, to replace the 1984 bilingual education system (the Dwibahasa). What immediately stood out about the SPN21 is the apparent heavier emphasis placed on English over the Official language, Bahasa Melayu, with English being introduced much earlier in the curriculum, i.e. as the medium of instruction for Mathematics and Science from Year 1 onwards. This paper aims to evaluate the efficacies of English language-in-education policies of SPN21, focusing on the interface between macro planning and micro practices. Rather than relying on evaluative measures in terms of national examination results as a benchmark of success, this paper assesses data gathered from two micro agents: the teachers and the pupils. Teachers, as implementers of language policies, collaborate with pupils in the classroom to achieve the goals articulated by the macro planners. The pupils in this study were assessed in terms of their motivation in English language learning whereas the teachers were assessed in terms of support received from the macro agents. The findings of the surveys are encouraging with indications that the English-enhancing initiatives thus far implemented will continue to produce the desired outcomes.
SALBRINA SHARBAWI
World Englishes Wiley
: This paper presents findings of a phonetic investigation of the 11 monophthongal vowels produced by 18 speakers of Brunei English (BrunE). Data for the current study was also collected from 12 Singapore English (SgE) speakers. In order to avoid a prescriptive approach, the description of the vowels was carried out using a modified inventory of vowel contrasts for the monophthongs following Wells’ model of standard lexical sets. The findings revealed that BrunE speakers are inconsistent in their vowel productions in which there is indeterminate usage of American English (AmE) and BrE vowels. The Singaporeans, however, show more uniformity across the subjects. It is proposed that the lack of consistency in BrunE vowel pronunciations may be explained in terms of the maturity of the English varieties. Whereas Schneider places SgE in an advanced phase 4 of his dynamic model of the evolution of postcolonial Englishes, the findings of the current study seems to indicate that BrunE belongs in the third phase. Statistical tests, however, do not seem to support the claim that BrunE and SgE are in different stages of development. It is also concluded that use of the lexical keywords may not be feasible in the description of an emerging English variety since the lexical sets are fixed and are based on the pronunciation of an Inner Circle variety. As such, an improvised lexical keyword set has been proposed for the description of BrunE vowels.
Salbrina Sharbawi and David Deterding
John Benjamins Publishing Company
We might expect Brunei English to be non-rhotic, as the Englishes of both Singapore and Malaysia are non-rhotic and Brunei has strong ethnic, historical, economic and cultural ties with those two countries. The current study compares the R-colouring of read data from female undergraduates in Brunei and Singapore, and it finds that the Brunei data is substantially more rhotic than that of Singapore. It is suggested that this is for two reasons: the main indigenous language of Brunei is Brunei Malay, which is rhotic; and Brunei English is at an earlier stage of development than Singapore English and so it is more susceptible to outside influences, particularly from American media.
Salbrina Sharbawi
John Benjamins Publishing Company
This paper provides an acoustic description of the vowels of Brunei English (BrunE). Ten female BrunE speakers were recorded reading The North Wind and the Sun (NWS) passage. The formant values of the eleven monophthong vowels and the rate of change (ROC) of the diphthong /eI/ were measured and compared with the data of seven British English (BrE) speakers and also the results of similar studies on Singapore English (SgE). It was found that BrunE shares some common features with SgE as both groups do not distinguish between /i˜/ and /I/, /e/ and /æ/, and /f˜/ and /#/. The high back vowels of BrunE, however, are unlike the SgE vowels. Whereas in SgE /u˜/ and /~/ are fully back, in BrunE these two vowels are fronted, so they are similar to the vowels of the BrE speakers. The data also shows that BrunE /f˜/ is more open and less back than BrE /f˜/. For /eI/, the average ROC for Bruneian speakers is considerably less negative than that for British speakers, which indicates that in BrunE, just as in SgE, this vowel is less diphthongal than its counterpart in BrE.