Linguistic Challenges in Intercultural Communication

Abstract

Intercultural, or so-called intercultural communication involves direct communication between representatives of different cultures. It is well known how diverse the cultural backgrounds of crew members can be. They differ in cultural values, national traditions, clothing, behavior, diet, living environment, views, etc.
Even in this area, maritime communication is a peculiar phenomenon. Because of international crews, it has been quite a considerable amount of time since, according to the International Maritime Convention, seafarers had a common language, English. Moreover, English is an essential part of educational programs for training maritime personnel of any specialization; seafarers have to pass an English language exam several times.
The above situation does not deny the intercultural nature of maritime communication ; official-business relations may be monolingual, but they are based on different cultural cognitive bases of communicants; therefore, they have all the characteristic features of intercultural communication. Moreover, we should not forget that the English language certificate obtained in different countries is proof that the sailor has passed the appropriate language level test; however, speaking practice still involves many “underlying” and invisible problems, including:
1) inaccuracies and misunderstandings caused by phonetic nuances;
2) lack of speech practice;
3) very different “variants” of the English language;
4) lack of knowledge of cultural background information, etc.
Particular importance should be attached to the final point when the ship's crew, upon entering a foreign port, has to communicate with representatives of that port's service (the port master, customs officers, the pilot). Maritime literature documents numerous cases in which failures in professional communication are attributed to linguo-ethnic barriers.