Publications

Publication details [#53940]

Deterding, David and Salbrina Sharbawi. 2010. Rhoticity in Brunei English. English World-Wide 31 (2) : 121–137.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/eww

Annotation

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.