Industry Insights: Multilingualism and Safe Workplace Communication in a High-risk Industry in the Gulf

Abstract

While organizations with a linguistically and culturally diverse workforce may face communication challenges, high-risk industries are required to address barriers to effective communication. The nuclear industry is unique because small errors can lead to grave consequences. Based on a case study of language use in a multilingual nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this study reports on heightened concerns with communication flow among multilingual groups in an English-medium work environment. A hierarchy of five different working languages emerged where English serves as the dominant operating language at the site, and Arabic, the official language of the state, takes a peripheral yet strategic role. Three additional languages, Korean, Hindi, and Urdu, are lower in the hierarchy, yet important in this complex linguistic ecology involving a joint venture between the host UAE company and a Korean company, with labor from South Asia. This chapter builds on existing sociolinguistic studies on multilingual workplace communication in the Arab Gulf states but uses an interdisciplinary approach in a high-risk work domain focusing on regulatory compliance with industrial safety policies and practices. The industrial concern with “safety communication” provides the rationale for recognizing all languages, which ensures communication effectiveness.