Salbrina Sharbawi
Biographic Data
| ID | 649859 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Salbrina Sharbawi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Salbrina |
| FAMILY NAME | Sharbawi |
| SIGNATURE | SHARBAWI S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universiti Brunei Darussalam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4987-1654 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Modal verbs in Brunei English online discourse: A corpus-pragmatic analysis of the Reddit Serious Discussion sub-corpus of CoBE
Modal verbs express epistemic stance, obligation, and dynamic meaning, making them a key resource for investigating variation across World Englishes. Yet modal pragmatics in Brunei English remains unexplored. This study offers the first detailed account, drawing on the Reddit Serious Discussion sub-corpus of the Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE), comprising 771,376 tokens across 323 documents. Frequency and collocational analysis are combined with …
Contact and Comparison: Bah in the Malay Particle Ecology
This paper examines the Malay‐origin discourse particle bah in Brunei English, drawing on 56 written tokens from the Reddit sub‐corpus and 52 spoken tokens from the Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE). We propose system displacement to capture what happens when a discourse particle operates outside the contrastive system that sustains its pragmatic force. Cross‐register comparison reveals a gradient of displacement: in spoken data, bah retains Malay‐…
Negotiating bilingual education policy: Parental language ideologies and demographic variation in Brunei
This study examines how Bruneian parents navigate the national bilingual education policy, with a focus on how sociodemographic factors influence their language ideologies. Based on survey data from 352 parents across Brunei’s four districts, the study surveys the beliefs of parents on the roles of Bahasa Melayu and English in early education. While Bahasa Melayu is symbolically linked to cultural and religious identity, its role as a medium of i…
Parental perspectives on the role of Bahasa Melayu in Brunei’s bilingual education policy: A National Survey on Language Ideologies, Preferences and Management
The Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE): An introduction
The Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE) is a large-scale collection of English spoken and written by Bruneians obtained from both formal and informal domains. This article presents the ongoing process of building the first corpus for Brunei English with a two-fold goal in mind: to provide a readily available resource centre for researchers who wish to study Brunei English; and to contribute to the existing corpus on World Englishes, thereby placing B…
Brunei’s Bahasa Melayu language-in-education policy: The pupils’ perspective
The Malays of Brunei: An investigation of their family language policies
Studies on Brunei Malay have made inconsistent findings: while some have asserted that this variety is thriving and is in no way endangered, others have found that its use is now waning. As the dynamics of family speech can inform what is happening linguistically at the community level, this study seeks to investigate the family language policies of the Brunei Malays by assessing parents’ language ideologies, practices and management strategies. …
English use in Brunei: Investigating the Gen Z
Neoteric studies on the sociolinguistics of Brunei point to a changing linguistic scene that sees English growing in terms of popularity and importance particularly among young Bruneians. So popular is the language that some are also claiming to speak it as their mother tongue. This article seeks to explore this matter further by investigating contemporaneous English use vis-à-vis Malay in Brunei among Generation Z Bruneians. The findings reveal …
Investigating language and religiosity in Brunei
The 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 ling…
The Americanisation of English in Brunei
Previous studies investigating postulations that Brunei English was being shaped by American English did not yield any conclusive findings. In recent years, claims of young English‐speaking Bruneians sounding American have become more persistent, thereby precipitating this research. Data was collected from 38 Bruneian Malays who are in their late teens and mid‐twenties and over 900 tokens representative of American English features were analysed.…
An English-centric monolingual Brunei? Predictions and reality
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…
Brunei’s SPN21 English language-in-education policy: A macro-to-micro evaluation
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 …
Brunei English: A New Variety in a Multilingual Society
Lexis
Revisiting the vowels of Brunei English
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 revea…
Rhoticity in Brunei English
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: th…
The vowels of Brunei English: An acoustic investigation
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 Bru…
Rhoticity in Brunei English
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: th…
The vowels of Brunei English: An acoustic investigation
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 Bru…
The Malays of Brunei: An investigation of their family language policies
Studies on Brunei Malay have made inconsistent findings: while some have asserted that this variety is thriving and is in no way endangered, others have found that its use is now waning. As the dynamics of family speech can inform what is happening linguistically at the community level, this study seeks to investigate the family language policies of the Brunei Malays by assessing parents’ language ideologies, practices and management strategies. …
Brunei’s SPN21 English language-in-education policy: A macro-to-micro evaluation
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 …
Revisiting the vowels of Brunei English
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 revea…
Parental perspectives on the role of Bahasa Melayu in Brunei’s bilingual education policy: A National Survey on Language Ideologies, Preferences and Management
Brunei’s Bahasa Melayu language-in-education policy: The pupils’ perspective
The Americanisation of English in Brunei
Previous studies investigating postulations that Brunei English was being shaped by American English did not yield any conclusive findings. In recent years, claims of young English‐speaking Bruneians sounding American have become more persistent, thereby precipitating this research. Data was collected from 38 Bruneian Malays who are in their late teens and mid‐twenties and over 900 tokens representative of American English features were analysed.…
The vowels of Brunei English: An acoustic investigation
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 Bru…
Rhoticity in Brunei English
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: th…
Revisiting the vowels of Brunei English
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 revea…
Brunei English: A New Variety in a Multilingual Society
Lexis
Brunei’s SPN21 English language-in-education policy: A macro-to-micro evaluation
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 …
An English-centric monolingual Brunei? Predictions and reality
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…
The Americanisation of English in Brunei
Previous studies investigating postulations that Brunei English was being shaped by American English did not yield any conclusive findings. In recent years, claims of young English‐speaking Bruneians sounding American have become more persistent, thereby precipitating this research. Data was collected from 38 Bruneian Malays who are in their late teens and mid‐twenties and over 900 tokens representative of American English features were analysed.…
English use in Brunei: Investigating the Gen Z
Neoteric studies on the sociolinguistics of Brunei point to a changing linguistic scene that sees English growing in terms of popularity and importance particularly among young Bruneians. So popular is the language that some are also claiming to speak it as their mother tongue. This article seeks to explore this matter further by investigating contemporaneous English use vis-à-vis Malay in Brunei among Generation Z Bruneians. The findings reveal …
Investigating language and religiosity in Brunei
The 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 ling…
The Malays of Brunei: An investigation of their family language policies
Studies on Brunei Malay have made inconsistent findings: while some have asserted that this variety is thriving and is in no way endangered, others have found that its use is now waning. As the dynamics of family speech can inform what is happening linguistically at the community level, this study seeks to investigate the family language policies of the Brunei Malays by assessing parents’ language ideologies, practices and management strategies. …
The Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE): An introduction
The Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE) is a large-scale collection of English spoken and written by Bruneians obtained from both formal and informal domains. This article presents the ongoing process of building the first corpus for Brunei English with a two-fold goal in mind: to provide a readily available resource centre for researchers who wish to study Brunei English; and to contribute to the existing corpus on World Englishes, thereby placing B…
Brunei’s Bahasa Melayu language-in-education policy: The pupils’ perspective
Modal verbs in Brunei English online discourse: A corpus-pragmatic analysis of the Reddit Serious Discussion sub-corpus of CoBE
Modal verbs express epistemic stance, obligation, and dynamic meaning, making them a key resource for investigating variation across World Englishes. Yet modal pragmatics in Brunei English remains unexplored. This study offers the first detailed account, drawing on the Reddit Serious Discussion sub-corpus of the Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE), comprising 771,376 tokens across 323 documents. Frequency and collocational analysis are combined with …
Contact and Comparison: Bah in the Malay Particle Ecology
This paper examines the Malay‐origin discourse particle bah in Brunei English, drawing on 56 written tokens from the Reddit sub‐corpus and 52 spoken tokens from the Corpus of Brunei English (CoBE). We propose system displacement to capture what happens when a discourse particle operates outside the contrastive system that sustains its pragmatic force. Cross‐register comparison reveals a gradient of displacement: in spoken data, bah retains Malay‐…
Negotiating bilingual education policy: Parental language ideologies and demographic variation in Brunei
This study examines how Bruneian parents navigate the national bilingual education policy, with a focus on how sociodemographic factors influence their language ideologies. Based on survey data from 352 parents across Brunei’s four districts, the study surveys the beliefs of parents on the roles of Bahasa Melayu and English in early education. While Bahasa Melayu is symbolically linked to cultural and religious identity, its role as a medium of i…
Parental perspectives on the role of Bahasa Melayu in Brunei’s bilingual education policy: A National Survey on Language Ideologies, Preferences and Management
Multilingual Education and Policy (12 works) · Linguistics (11 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Malay (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · English language (4 works)