Language barriers and Miscommunication

No matter how much technology there is on ships and in companies, in the

end the machines work because there are people behind them and people are
much more complicated than the machines. Knowing how to treat people is
important as or more important than knowing how to treat machines.

This is a fact that is often forgotten by some companies and there are moments of
danger on board due, precisely, to misunderstandings between crew members or
between crew members and shore personnel or other ships, or simply due to
mental fatigue of the crew members carrying too long shipped. Up to 80% of
accidents on ships are caused by human error, so it is vital for ship safety to have
a good understanding of the process of personal communication and how good
health can be ensured as much as possible psychic of the crew of merchant ships
today.

It must be taken into account that sailors not only work with machines, but also live
for long periods inside a machine, which is the ship they crew. In addition, this
machine is on the move in a hostile environment, such as the sea, which
sometimes punishes the crew with storms that make life on board hard, rapid
weather changes on many interoceanic voyages, etc. It is also important to
understand that the seafarer works away from his family environment for weeks,
without a fixed day due to multiple unforeseen events, without the possibility of
mentally moving away from day-to-day work problems, necessarily living twenty-
four hours with the same people and usually in a multicultural environment
immersed in a group of people with different languages and cultural references.

Fortunately, more and more shipping companies are aware of this type of problem
and there are also more and more studies that address this type of problem in
order to have reliable data and tools to improve the well-being of passengers
marine and ship safety. All this is producing, as I will comment later, changes in
international legislation that affect the regulation of maritime work to avoid, as far
as possible, safety problems derived from fatigue and stress of the crews.
The environment and everything that surrounds the communication process are
altered in such a way that the communication process on board

The environment is no longer stable, but can change from one moment to another
due to noise coming from the ship itself or due to meteorological phenomena. The
sender and the receiver often do not share the same language or are from the
same social stratum, to which must be added that within the organization chart of
the crew they can be of different rank, so there is always someone who is below
the other, which, in many cases, makes it difficult to give real feedback.

For example, it is common among sailors from some Eastern countries that due to
their culture they are unable to say no to a superior, which in practice means that
they respond that they have understood the instructions they have been given
even when they have not. In the same way, being from very different cultures can
make it difficult to understand non-verbal language, which is a very important part
of communication.

For this reason, it is very important that the crew of a ship, especially the officers,
take all of this into account when establishing effective communication between the
different workers on the ship, so that they ensure at all times that the messages
emitted have been received and understood by the receivers, thus avoiding
situations that could trigger accidents on board.

To a first approximation, anyone can realize that having a group of people working
on a ship and speaking, say, six or seven different languages can lead to serious
communication problems. Even when the working language on board is only one,
normally English, the usual thing is that for many crew members that language is
not their own, so they may have some difficulty in mastering it, so it may be the
case that some orders are not completely understood at first by some crew
member, especially if he is a novice.

The work of the ship's officers is essential for the work on the ship to be carried out
without problems. They are the ones who must know the cultural differences of the
different crew members and the ones who must know how to treat people with
education and with an open mind, accepting differences and making sure that
everyone has understood what is expected of them work on board.

Any communication must be done in the ship's working language, normally

maritime English, giving orders clearly and waiting for confirmation that they have
been understood. It is also important at the end of the work to thank the crew
members for their participation and discuss with them how the task has been
carried out in order to know if there has been any problem and to be able to avoid it
in the future.

It is also noteworthy that due to the lack of command of the language on board, a
crew member can more easily fall into isolation from the social life of the ship,
something that can trigger problems such as depression.

In this regard, it is important to highlight that, nowadays, the correct use of the
English language in most of the ships of the world's merchant fleet is essential for
safety on board. Therefore, in the revision made in 1995 of the STCW1,
requirements of knowledge of maritime English were added for the first time for the
certification of the competences of maritime professionals.

This is vital, since poor communication in this language has been identified as
“human error” causing so many accidents. In addition, this poor communication
causes misunderstandings, lack of trust and discomfort among crew members, or
between crew members and shore personnel or other ships, which are a good
breeding ground for errors and accidents.

In the ISM Code of the International Maritime Organization, whose objective is

safety at sea, the prevention of injury and loss of human life and the avoidance of
damage to the environment, the need for effective communication is emphasized
with appropriate orders made of clearly and with appropriate forms of
communication.
In the STCW code, whose objective is the training of seafarers, numerous
references are also made to effective, clear, concise and understandable
communication.

Finally, in the 2006 Maritime Labor Convention, which regulates occupational

safety in the maritime environment, special mention was also made of the
importance of the correct use of maritime English, since the different nationalities,
languages and crew cultures.