TRAINING MULTILINGUALISM AT SEA(Presented at the 16th International Conference on Maritime Transport and Infrastructure 2014 at Riga)

Erik Hemming

Åland University of Applied Sciences, e-mail of presenting author: ehe@ha.ax

AbstractINTERMAR is a project designed to facilitate the reciprocal understanding and learning of languages through intercomprehension in a maritime context. It is a fact that English remains the professional maritime language, but in many situations, good communication fails due to a single-minded belief that anything that is not English is incomprehensible. In order to change this attitude, Intermar departs from the belief that the life-long learning of several languages and deeper understanding of other cultures are keys to success. Improved communication will be one of the expected outcomes.

IntroductionFailed communication is at the root of a majority of all accidents and incidents at sea. By this is meant both the communication that takes place on board the ships and the one between ships and ships to shore. Whereas the latter is dominated by English in international trade, the first is characterized by the use of many different languages, even though the official working language of shipping companies might be English. Since the work force many times is recruited from different countries, the issue of a working language is very complicated and important.

Since language is the most important vehicle of culture, the fact that communication on board ships takes place between speakers of different languages will inevitably also involve intercultural communication – also in purely technical discussions, in the form of ideas about hierarchy, individualism, non-verbal communication, work ethics, time management, etc. if, added to this, the communication is carried out in insufficiently competent English, then failed communication is clearly within reach.

The EU project INTERMAR is a project designed to facilitate the reciprocal understanding and learning of languages through intercomprehension in a maritime context. It is a fact that English remains the professional maritime language, but in many situations, good communication fails due to a single-minded belief that anything that is not English is incomprehensible. In order to change this attitude, Intermar departs from the belief that the life-long learning of several languages and deeper understanding of other cultures are keys to success. Improved communication will be one of the expected outcomes. (INTERMAR, 2013)

The partner consortium is composed of 18 institutions including European maritime colleges, both merchant marine and naval, as well as universities with a language training component. A 3 ECTS credit module was created in 2012 and 2013 to be used in maritime language training in higher education. The basic idea is that related languages are understandable when used in specific contexts, both oral situations and texts.

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English as lingua franca at seaThe IMO is at loss when it comes to strategies to remedy these communication challenges related to the lack of common verbal language and cultural mind-set. Even vague formulae like “ability to understand orders and to communicate with the officer of the watch on matters relevant to watch-keeping duties.” (International Maritime Organisation, 1996) are few and far between. In fact, the words culture and human factor are not mentioned at all in the STCW convention (Karlsson, 2013). Since nothing is stated in the convention it cannot be expected that the topic is taken up by maritime training institutions.

Nor does the ISM code touch this issue more than lightly: “The Company should ensure that the ship’s personnel are able to communicate effectively in the execution of their duties related to the safety management system” (International Maritime Organisation, 2010) is a phrase a little too open for interpretation.

Sadly, there is little support for the hope that the training of the Standard Maritime Communication Phrases which is inscribed in the STCW convention bears fruit in the form of better communication or even of being used at all. Of course, it must be very hard to be the one who is supposed to introduce that type of formalised communication for a person who just has left school and grapples with a low rank in the hierarchy on board. Language is after all just social behaviour and such is normally directed and spread from above or from the centre in a social system (ArticleWorld, 2014).

Intercultural CommunicationFailed intercultural communication is characterized by segregation – which is a typical feature on board ships in the international merchant navy. It is firmly structured in differences in rank, salary, contracts types, accommodation, etc. and is counteracted by the by-product of segregation, namely stereotyping and prejudice. By never really communicating as humans the learning process which is necessary to be able to overcome obstacles never gets to start. Language problems add to this entrenchment.

Here too the change must come from above and the centre for communication to open up between subgroups. One way of coming to grips with language barriers is to explore the life-long learning of languages and cultures that is offered by proponents of intercomprehension. This method is maybe not much talked about, yet it is used on board many ships, saving the from failed communication – certainly in the cases when crewmembers speak different but not very distant languages and do not understand English, at least not better than the other available languages. (Trygg Månsson, 2014)

Intercomprehension and MultilingualismIntercomprehension may be theoretically defined as “the process of co-constructing meaning in intercultural/interlinguistic contexts” (Capucho, 2002) or, more simply, as a form of communication in which each person would use his or her own language and would be able to understand that of the other(s) (cf. Doyé 2005: 7).

One of the potential fields to which intercomprehension strategies would be of most benefit is the maritime one. Seafarers come into frequent contact with different languages both on board and ashore. In addition they are required to live and work with colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds.

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Which is the pedagogy of intercomprehension? It is to try to understand texts in languages that are unknown or little known but related to one’s own language/s, by means of the similarities between the languages and the context from which the text is taken (and one’s own experience from similar situations and other cultural knowledge one has acquired). (Janin, 2006)

Where and when?It has been suggested by the workgroup behind the European Union initiative INTERMAR (Intercomprehension at Sea) that intercomprehension be used with moderation but with persistence by crewmembers in order to improve relationships and to slowly get used to hearing more languages and trying to understand what people mean when they say things (or write). “In many situations, good communication fails due to a single-minded belief that anything that is not English is incomprehensible” (INTERMAR, 2013). Hence the mind map in figure 1 has been drawn up.

Figure 1. When and where to use intercomprehension (INTERMAR, 2013)

Training multilingualismIn order to start early in the lives of mariners the course module INTERMAR was designed for use at Maritime and Naval Academies throughout Europe. It was launched in 2013 after a year of trials at eight academies. As was pointed out at the official launching ceremony in Lisbon in 2013, it is always difficult to make room for a new module in tight curricula. In addition, this one builds on quite unorthodox ideas, at least when seen from an academic perspective. It will be possible to insert the syllabus in different ways at different institutions, but these are the sections to work with (figure 2):

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Figure 2. Subsections of the course module (INTERMAR, 2013)

The blended learning in the figure means a mix of online work, group work with tasks, and in-class follow-up activities and drawing of conclusions. Hence the 60 hours can be reduced to 30 on the timetable. It is often the case that navigation students have full days of in-class studies, unlike, say, language students. Therefore it has been a challenge to convince managements to insert this course on the curricula. However, it is clear to most people involved in education that new technology is heralding new ways of learning for new generations (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005).

It is strange to think that the main objective of INTERMAR is NOT to remember words or to learn grammar, NOR to write or speak the languages. Instead the focus lies on developing strategies concerning how to USE languages one hasn’t studied, mainly in the process of making sense of texts (spoken or written) in contexts. This is a deeply human activity so it is clearly within reach. De Beaugrande puts it aptly: “Making sense of a text is very much a special case of making sense of the world” (de Beaugrande, 1980).

Instead the target competences can be summed up as in the Åland University of Applied Sciences syllabus, refer to table 1.

Table 1. Learning outcomes from an Intermar syllabus example (Åland University of Applied Sciences, 2012)

Ability to use languages that one never has studied (specified as the following objectives):• Ability to make sense of written and spoken texts in foreign languages.• Ability to use context and linguistic similarities as keys in the decoding process.• Ability to read closely and to listen attentively to foreign languages.• Ability to use Internet resources as tools and as sources of information and entertainment.• Ability to decode English pronounced in foreign accents.• Understanding of one’s own ways of learning.• A positive attitude to foreign languages and cultures.

If these outcomes are reached (even partly) it is likely that students develop receptive competences that can be measured in test-like situations. In languages that are similar to the ones one already has studied or used perhaps even up to level B2 on the CEFR scale after just a dozen hours of training (Council of Europe, 2011). Depending on decreasing similarity that level will approach A1 and far below – but never go down to zero, see the de Beaugrande quote again!

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ConclusionNobody knows what the challenges of new generations are to be. If globalization continues to drive our cultural development, multilingualism will be there for a long time to come. Employing inexpensive crews means that the problem of insufficient competence in English will stay on for a long time. What can be done now is to embrace the present situation and see it as full of opportunities. Sailors don’t wait for the windfall; they learn to sail. Manoeuvring the oceans of human communication is an opportunity that is brought to most people by means of information and communication technologies. Yet only few venture out, beyond the Pillars of Hercules to navigate the unchartered waters of human communication. INTERMAR seeks to change that.

References Capucho, F. M. (2002). The Role of Intercomprehension in the Construction of European Citizenship. Viseu:

Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

Doyé, P. (2005). Intercomprehension. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Grech, M. R., Horberry, T. J., & Koester, T. (2008). Human Factors in the Maritime Domain. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

INTERMAR. (2013). Welcome. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from INTERMAR: www.intermar.ax

International Maritime Organization. (1996). International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. London: International Maritime Organization.

International Maritime Organization. (2010). International Safety Management Code. London: International Maritime Organization.

Karlsson, E. (2013). Regulations and Communication on-board a ship. Gothenburg: Chalmers University of Technology.

Trygg Månsson, J. (2014). Lingua Franca at Sea -The use of a Common Language at Sea. Gothenburg: Chalmers University of Technology.

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