The Multi-Modal Dimensions of Risk Communication in Difficult Cross-Cultural Contexts

困难的跨文化背景下风险沟通的多模式维度

• 批准号: 0428345
• 负责人: Beverly Sauer
• 金额: $ 10.01万
• 依托单位: Johns Hopkins University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-01-01 至 2008-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0428345&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Multi; Modal; Dimensions; Risk; Communication

Risk communicators recognize the importance of non-verbal communication in the elicitation of what stakeholders know and in the construction of risk messages, but they have not investigated how viewpoint and gesture function in cross-cultural institutional contexts of risk. Analysis of gesture in real-time workplace interactions shows that individuals employ gesture to represent spatial and temporal properties of experience not possible in speech alone (cf. McNeill & Duncan, 2000). Viewpoint is a critical feature of gestural representations in the workplace. The ability to move flexibly between analytic and local perspectives is necessary if individuals are to move into positions of authority (Sauer, 2003; cf. McNeill, 1992). Gestures may contribute to confusion, however, if the semantic content of speech and gesture conflicts or if the gestural viewpoint cannot be reconciled with workers' embodied experience (cf. Alibali & Goldin-Meadow 1993) and cultural background. The problem is particularly acute in South African mines where linguistic facility (in English or Afrikans) often provides the sole measure of workplace competence. Differences in gestural viewpoint and unscripted communication practices create conflicting and inaccurate risk messages that confuse workers during safety training and increase the potential for disaster (Sauer, forthcoming). These findings raise questions about the cultural and institutional dimensions of gesture in cross-cultural risk communication: What factors determine viewpoint and how do differences encoded in language and gesture impact on comprehension? What do these differences reveal, more generally, about the cultural dimensions of spatial and temporal understanding in cross- cultural communication in the context of risk? The project has five objectives: (1) identify gestural forms and their relation to speech in previously collected data from SA coal mine safety training programs; (2) determine how viewpoint is related to speaker's prescribed and assumed roles in the interaction; (3) determine whether differences in gestural form, meaning, and viewpoint affect levels of understanding; (4) determine the extent to which different levels of understanding reflect differences in language, culture, education, institutional experience, and/or other paralinguistic and contextual factors of safety training; (5) draw conclusions about the role of gestural viewpoint and gesture as a communicative feature of specialized technical (risk) discourses and its implications for risk communication and related disciplines in multi- cultural environments. Using participant-centered methods, experts in gestural analysis, rhetoric, mining, and South African languages will (1) work with local informants to describe, analyze, and compare gestural meaning and viewpoint in video taped communicative interactions of mine safety programs across cultural and institutional dimensions (trainers, translators, and miners) and (2) elicit communicative representations of sites of communicative difficulty in cohorts of ten across each of the hypothesized parameters of difference: education v. uneducated, Afrikaans v. Zulu, and institutionally experienced v. inexperienced.This study will help improve cross-cultural risk communication in conditions of profound technical uncertainty where language barriers prevent social and economic transformation and create the potential for disaster. The research also has more general implications for engineering and science education where individuals do not share similar languages or culture

风险沟通者认识到非语言沟通在利益相关者了解和构建风险信息方面的重要性，但他们没有研究观点和手势在跨文化风险制度背景下的作用。对实时工作场所互动中的手势的分析表明，个人使用手势来表示经验的空间和时间属性，这在单独的语音中是不可能的（参见麦克尼尔邓肯，2000年）。视点是工作场所手势表征的一个重要特征。如果个人要进入权威的位置，在分析和本地观点之间灵活移动的能力是必要的（Sauer，2003; cf。麦克尼尔，1992年）。然而，如果言语和手势的语义内容冲突，或者手势的观点不能与工人的具体经验相协调，手势可能会导致混乱（参见。Alibali Goldin-Meadow 1993）和文化背景。这个问题在南非的矿山尤为严重，那里的语言能力（英语或南非荷兰语）往往是衡量工作场所能力的唯一标准。手势观点和非脚本沟通实践的差异会产生相互冲突和不准确的风险信息，使工人在安全培训期间感到困惑，并增加灾难的可能性（Sauer，即将出版）。这些发现提出了跨文化风险沟通中手势的文化和制度层面的问题：什么因素决定观点，以及语言和手势编码的差异如何影响理解？这些差异揭示了什么，更普遍地说，关于跨文化交际中的空间和时间理解的文化维度在风险的背景下？该项目有五个目标：（1）在先前收集的来自SA煤矿安全培训项目的数据中识别手势形式及其与言语的关系;（2）确定观点如何与说话者在交互中的规定和假定角色相关;（3）确定手势形式、意义和观点的差异是否影响理解水平;（4）确定不同理解水平在多大程度上反映了语言、文化、教育、机构经验和/或安全培训的其他副语言和背景因素的差异;（5）得出关于手势观点和手势作为专业技术（风险）交流特征的作用的结论论述及其对多元文化环境下风险沟通及相关学科的启示。使用以参与者为中心的方法，手势分析、修辞、采矿和南非语言方面的专家将（1）与当地信息提供者合作，描述、分析和比较跨文化和制度维度的矿山安全项目视频交流互动中的手势意义和观点（培训师，翻译和矿工）和（2）在每一个假设的差异参数中，在10人的队列中引出沟通困难部位的沟通表征：这项研究将有助于改善跨文化风险沟通的深刻的技术不确定性的条件下，语言障碍，防止社会和经济转型，并创造潜在的灾难。这项研究对工程和科学教育也有更广泛的意义，因为人们没有相似的语言或文化