The risk of standardizing emergency communication during the hurricane season

Many migrants to the U.S. do not arrive with a clear understanding of the basic hazard terms – such as ‘hurricane’ and ‘tornado’ – used by local weather channels and in emergency communications (Uekusa, 2019). In the absence of institutional support to consider complex linguistic differences, there are few options but direct translation. As part of a recently published study, bilingual migrants were interviewed in the U.S. Looking at data from ten languages, the study shows how minor deviations in translation can cause significant differentials in understanding, where such misunderstandings can have catastrophic consequences (Abukhalaf & von Meding, 2021a). This is a simmering public health issue, with clear equity implications.

“To what extent the way we think is influenced by the language we speak?” That is the core question of a research area called Linguistic-Relativity or Whorfianism (Wolff & Holmes, 2011). Although there has been growing evidence that almost half of the human perception is processed by linguistic filters, the application of Linguistic-Relativity remains very limited in other fields outside linguistics and psychology (Thierry, 2016).

On the other hand, emergency communication is all about using numbers, movements, expressions, shapes, and colors to spread timely information in the form of warnings and directives (Zhang et al., 2019). But when we decide to have an emergency communication system, we usually adopted a preexisting one because it is cheaper than building a new one (Manoj & Baker, 2007), but the real question here is: What are we risking exactly by overlooking the linguistic variations? And how significant can these variations be?

A new study went beyond translation issues and explored the psychological dimension of local emergency communication in English and compared it to several other languages. The data spotted considerable variations in the way people perceive local emergency communication based on their mother language (Abukhalaf & von Meding, 2021a). Such variations can easily and significantly influence people’s behavior during emergencies.

Discussion

The limitation of direct translation in emergency communication

Can a butterfly in Chicago cause a tornado in Hong Kong? A metaphorical concept called the ‘Butterfly-Effect’ describes the sensitivity of a system to minor changes (Clatici et al., 2018). The use of this concept has grown significantly in many technical fields, such as IT and computer science, but not in fields like crisis management and emergency communications.

For example, people in the U.S use the word ‘Hurricane’, but other geographical locations use the words ‘Cyclone’ and ‘Typhoon’. The difference between the three is down to where the storm originates - they are the same natural phenomenon. The word ‘Hurricane’ assumes a certain cultural context around the world. This is mainly due to the U.S government’s narrative around hurricanes, and how this is covered in the U.S media. Because of this migrants from India might assume that hurricanes are more destructive than cyclones. They can compare the U.S government response to hurricanes to the Indian government response to cyclones. If this assumption is made, risk perception is altered.

The knock-on effect is that human behavior toward the exact same natural phenomena is altered. Is it not as important to prepare for cyclones as for hurricanes? The problem is even more complicated when we consider additional languages. For example, the words ‘Tornado’ and ‘Twister’ are used interchangeably in the U.S, but in Spanish, they are not. In Spanish, ‘Tornado’ is translated to ‘Tornado’, while ‘Twister’ is translated to ‘Torbellino’ or ‘Tromba’, which is translated back to English as ‘Whirlwind’. This is similar to the translation ‘Kardbad’ in Persian, which also means a ‘Whirlwind’. These translations fail to reflect the severity of the hazard, and ultimately the level of risk to humans.

A similar issue appears in Arabic. The two words ‘Tornado’ and ‘Hurricane’ are translated into the same Arabic word, ‘Iiesar’. This word describes a circular movement of wind. The term used in Arabic to describe a hurricane is ‘Iiesar Bahri’, which is translated back to English as ‘Sea Cyclone’. There is even more confusion if the word ‘Typhoon’ is used. While ‘Typhoon’ and ‘Cyclone’ have the same meaning in English, they do not in Arabic. ‘Typhoon’ has an Arabic origin ‘Tawaphan’, but the word in Arabic means ‘Flooding’. The word also can be found in Persian ‘Tophan’, but here it means a ‘Rainstorm’. The word exists in Hindi as well ‘Toophan’, and here it simply means a ‘Storm’.

The problems do not end with ‘hurricane’ and ‘tornado’. Similar issues were found arising with terms used to describe seismic activates and monsoonal dust and sand storms. And this is only scratching the surface as this data is limited to nine languages out of more than 7,100 spoken languages around the world (Abukhalaf & von Meding, 2021a).

The language influence on individuals’ understanding of emergency communication

Listening or reading a sentence in your second language is less accurate compared to your first language, and that gets worse during stressful times (Volk et al., 2014). So if we communicate with people using their second language about an approaching hazard, they may not receive it correctly and follow wrong procedures as a result. Moreover, making a decision in a second language also underweights losses and gains (Hadjichristidis et al., 2017; Fausey & Boroditsky, 2011), which means people may underweight the consequences of an approaching hazard, and so choose not to prepare for it. Other studies have shown that a second language is associated with less moral evaluation towards actions (Geipel et al., 2015), which can influence post-disaster behaviors, especially when it comes to helping others.

Besides the use of the language, most emergency communication systems rely heavily on color-coding, and assume that all people view colors in the same way (Thierry et al., 2009). Research has shown that if you do not have a word for a certain color in your language, you may not be able to see it. People from Namibia speaking the Otjihimba language are literally unable to see Blue, because they do not have a word for the color in their language (Roberson et al., 2006). Similarly, we usually assume a global understanding of numbers. Still, research has also shown that our perception of numbers varies based on our language, and that variations can be extreme sometimes. People from Brazil speaking the Múra-Pirahã language face difficulties distinguishing between numbers like 10 and 15, because they have no words for these numbers in their language (Nevins et al., 2009).

Language can also affect our sense of direction (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2013). While we might say in English ‘The escape-stair is to the right of the elevator’, in other languages, like Guugu Yimithirr in Australia, that is not enough, where people need to be more specific, so they would say ‘The escape-stair is on the southwest of the elevator’. Sometimes the language structure itself can be a source of confusion as well; whereas saying “Fire again house at started” may not make sense for many of us, but the words are in the right order in Korean (Boroditsky, 2001). Similarly, linguistic studies show variations in sense of time, emotional intelligence, gender realization, and memorizing abilities, and all of that can greatly influence people’s behavior during emergencies ( Abukhalaf & von Meding, 2021a).

Recommendations

Studies have shown that emergency communication needs to become more inclusive and equitable and culturally aware (Regier & Kay, 2009). The communication gaps that have been observed can cause linguistic minorities to confuse one natural hazard with another, quite possibly leading to the wrong preventive measures (Chmutina et al., 2020). The disadvantage caused - or indeed harm - may be unintentional. But the act of translating with sensitivity for the ‘periphery’ (non-English) should be seen as an act of solidarity.

Beyond overcoming mistranslation issues, there are opportunities to promote inclusive and equitable disaster preparedness, especially for the 67 million U.S. citizens and residents who speak a foreign language in their homes (Abukhalaf & von Meding, 2021b). The provision of emergency communication translations into other languages spoken in the U.S. is already widespread. But without understanding the use of words in their original cultural context, translation itself can fail to convey the intended meaning.

The global trend now is to try unifying systems in order to reduce cost. That can be seen in emergency communication within language standardization strategies that aim to a faster information transfer. But is fast all that we need? What about accuracy? Research shows that when institutions adopt one communication language, they face a significant loss of performance (Athanasopoulos & Treffers-Daller, 2015). We have to be mindful of these consequences that come with unifying communication, especially when research shows that unified communication creates a higher sense of rejection (Abukhalaf & von Meding, 2020).

Customization is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. We need to design our communication systems around the people we are trying to communicate with. We have to carry out orderly evaluations for the current communication systems to see how people get and understand warning messages. Having a good communication system once is not enough; we need to continuously rethink about how to make it better.

Declaration of interests:

This research did not receive funding from any agency in the commercial, public, or not-for-profit sectors, and no incentives were provided for the subjects to participate in the study. The author also declares that he has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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