The Informant
The recording of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ passage and also the word lists is by a 22-year-old female third-year undergraduate at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She was selected on the basis of her self-reported proficiency in speaking the language, something that was confirmed by one of her classmates. Her first language is Brunei Malay, and she speaks it with her parents and siblings. She is also competent in both Standard Malay and English. In fact, she completed an internship at the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei (the Brunei Language and Literature Bureau), where she wrote magazine articles in Standard Malay; and her written assignments and oral presentations in English are of a high quality.
Many scholars prefer to base their research on recordings of older speakers, in the search for a ‘pure’ variety of the language. For example, Jaludin (2000: 19) obtained most of his data from informants over 50 years old. However, here we choose to study a younger speaker, to emphasise that Brunei Malay is a vibrant language widely used by young people in Brunei. While it would be valuable to record two speakers, one old and one younger, to provide an indication about how the language may be undergoing change, it is beyond the scope of the current study to offer a comprehensive coverage of variation in Brunei, and instead the study aims to provide an in-depth study of one speaker. Although the pronunciation that the consultant uses does not include all the features of traditional Brunei Malay, it reflects the way that the language is currently used by young people.