Language Barriers, Miscommunication and Marine Accidents

Author: Kh. Atikur Rahman
DOI: doi.org/10.70279/bmj-v8-i1-1035
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With the exponential growth in international trade and commerce in recent decades, the number of goods transported by ships has increased. To overcome the scarcity of seafarers and minimize the cost of recruitment, shipping companies have been employing foreign crews, but such recruitments, although inevitable, cause many marine accidents due to language barriers and miscommunication in multilingual and multicultural ship environments. Taking metadata from both academic and non-academic sources and applying analytical methodologies, this review article analyzes marine accident reports to ascertain the influence of language barriers and miscommunication on the causes of the incidents. In addition, factors influencing miscommunication have been identified and risk of miscommunication was assessed qualitatively alongside giving suggestions so as to lessen language barriers and risk of miscommunication.