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Language Barrier to Climate Change Communication |
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by Vivian Nabisere | 14-01-2022 03:17
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Language barrier to Climate Change Communication.
At one time, Nelson Mandela said, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." His statement truly makes sense, with respect to the efficiency in communication of climate change as a major public concern, that is to say; communication of the climate crisis is most effective in the mother tongue of the target audience. For instance, Uganda has English as her official language and over 56 tribal groups, each with its native language. Growing up, the native language is the first language of the majority of the children in the country and therefore most people are highly proficient in it. The terms used in climate advocacy such as 'climate change', 'global warming', cannot easily identify with the average person in the official language ( even to those with a fairly good proficiency level) and are even more challenging to break down in the local languages. This is because there's no native vocabulary that directly or closely translates to many terms commonly used during environmental awareness campaigns. This is a source of confusion and discourages engagement of local communities in climate action. Therefore, it does not make sense when activists reach out to the local communities using speeches and cards written in English, which the majority there are less proficient in (compared to the native language) , even though it is the official language. Considering the above, I find it necessary to customize an environmental awareness campaign for a particular local community through interpretation of environmental terminologies into clear words that can resonate with the regional public. For example, for a campaign in parts of the central region of Uganda where Luganda is the most common native language spoken, using Luganda when conveying information makes the people understand more easily which increases chances of moving them to positive climate action. Reference Communicating the Climate Crisis by Maria Virginia Olano https://climate-xchange.org/communicating-the-climate-crisis/ |
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3 Comments
Nice report Vivian. Thanks for sharing :)
Posted 17-01-2022 12:42
Hello Vivian, this is your mentor Hannah.
Great perspective to environmental communication.
In my university, almost all the lectures are spoken in English, even in cases of lectures when the professor is Korean and all of the students are Korean. Some students say that the efficiency of professor teaching in forein language is 0.7 out of 1 and the efficiency of students learning in foreign language is also 0.7. Then, multyplying the efficiency, the lecture tought in foreing language give efficiency of 0.49 out of 1 which is almost half efficient.
As this example, your proposal that campaigns should be translated and interpretted by their own language seems to have more efficiency.
Thank you for your great article and please keep up with your wonderful work :)
Sincerly,
Hannah
Posted 16-01-2022 18:38
Hello Vivian, this is your mentor Joon.
I definitely agree with your words. Though I cannot fully empathize with the situation that official language is different from spoken language, as both official and spoken language is Korean in my country, I understand that context. I also think that it is best to use language mother tongue, but the difficult point is to find people to interpret the language. Other then that, it is absolutely recommened.
Well read your article, and let's keep up!
Best,
Joon
Posted 14-01-2022 11:36