James McLellan

Political, Educational and Socioeconomic Motivations for Language Shift in Multilingual Malaysia

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multilingual country with a total population of 28.55 million (Malaysian Department of Statistics 2011). The country comprises the Malay Peninsula (West Malaysia, ‘Semenanjung’), and the states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo Island. Table 6.1 shows a basic breakdown of the total population according to ethnicity:

Brunei Culture, English Language: Textual Reflections of an Asian Culture Located in the English-Language Output of Bruneians

Abstract This paper uses an insider-outsider approach to identify and analyse some syntactic, lexical and discoursal features of English texts produced by Bruneians, in order to investigate how Bruneian users of English seek to maintain their own cultural identity when communicating through this “global” language. Sections of the paper discuss anaphoric and exophoric reference, tense choice and avoidance, collocations and style-shifts, and how texts, specifically letters to newspaper editors, are structured in terms of their informational content. The theoretical underpinning for this paper includes notions of politeness and face, the ownership of English, and approaches to the discourses of English as an international language and the “worldliness of English” adopted by Pennycook (1994). The validity of the notion of discourse transfer is critically examined in the conclusion.

The Language Situation in Brunei Darussalam

This chapter aims to provide an introduction to Brunei Darussalam for readers, giving essential background information for the other chapters in this volume and also offering a valuable overview of language issues in the country.

Patterns of Language Choice and Use in Interactions Among Foreign Workers in Brunei Darussalam: A Preliminary Study

The construction industry and the retail trade in Brunei Darussalam employ large numbers of expatriate workers. The chapter reports on a preliminary investigation into patterns of language use among these workers in different communicative contexts.

Similar Story, Different Angles? A Comparative Study of ‘Hard News’ Texts in the Malay and English Print Media in Brunei Darussalam

In this chapter we compare texts from two Brunei Darussalam newspapers, the English-language Borneo Bulletin and the Malay-language Media Permata . The comparative focus is on ‘hard news’ texts: reports of current events that are considered newsworthy. We use a modified Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework to analyse the texts as product, investigating which aspects and actors are given prominence, e.g. through topicalisation, and whether there are differences in prominence and topicalisation between the English and Malay texts. The initial comparison of reports covering the same story in Malay and English sheds light on whether any translation occurs in the process of preparing the reports for publication, as well as on editorial decisions about what to include and what to leave out of the Malay and English texts. In order to achieve a measure of triangulation, we also present findings from semi-structured interviews conducted with journalists and editors of the two newspapers.