Variation Within Brunei English

This chapter discusses the concept of Brunei English, which the authors argue is an umbrella term used for the network of varieties of English in Brunei. Given that English has only been spoken in Brunei for a relatively short time, there are hardly any regional dialectal differences. Rather, variation exists along the social continuum, with ethnicity being one factor and education being another. In addition to the level of schooling, the type of education, such as whether one has received one’s education in the mainstream system or the religious one, also accounts for the variations observed in the English used amongst Bruneians. More recently, there have been reports of a generational Malay-English divide where for day-to-day activities, the tendency is to use Malay for older Bruneians while younger ones lean towards English. As such, it is fair to assume that most, if not all, young Bruneians are able to carry out a decent conversation in English whilst for the older ones, the ability ranges from highly adept to knowing only some rudimentary phrases. This can be explained as a consequence of the decades-long, progressively English-heavy education system. Also mentioned in this chapter is the British-American divide, where it is observed that the English of the young Bruneians is more similar to the American variety in terms of pronunciation and lexical choice. The older Bruneians, on the other hand, are more inclined to adhere to the traditional British ways. Taken holistically with the observations presented in the previous chapters, the authors explain that in alternating between one variety or code and another, and in selecting features associated with one variety over another, Bruneians are in fact indexing different social meanings, such as youthfulness, modernity, and educatedness.