Indonesian Seafarers’ Intercultural Communication Challenges With Multinational Crews

: The current study investigated the intercultural communication challenges among Indonesian seafarers with foreign crews at international shipping companies. Data collection was conducted through a mixed-questionnaire method, with each questionnaire consisting of 10 items distributed in Google Forms to 171 respondents. The findings revealed that the language barrier was a significant issue among Indonesian seafarers to communicate and socialize with onboard multinational crews, which was mainly overcome through body language. Indonesian seafarers’ acceptance of onboard diversity rendered them to be more sociable, which was identified as a positive attitude. However, it cannot be denied that the fact of low communicative competence has impacted social life interactions and work for some seafarers. Resultantly, pertinent Indonesian maritime education and training institutions should adequately prepare seafarers and cadets with relevant work skills and English linguistic competence. This research aims to shed new light on the development of maritime and seafarers’ research.

78 questionnaire encompassed open-ended and closed-ended questions to garner more detailed information related to seafarers' feelings, opinions, and attitudes regarding work communication and social interaction on board. Foddy (1993) asserted that open-ended questions would enable respondents to express personal views without being persuaded by the researcher, compared to close-ended questions with predefined answers, which limited respondents' perspectives. Moreover, open-ended questions could avoid bias from suggested responses while exploring respondents' spontaneous opinions. Nevertheless, open-ended questions might reduce response numbers when respondents were reluctant to provide detailed personal views (Reja et al., 2003). The questionnaire consisted of 10 items, with all responses collected from open-ended questions coded into relevant categories. According to Krosnick (2018), a coding scheme would be pertinent to effective analysis when different responses from open questions were coded into similar groups or categories. All collected data were analyzed through the Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) software.

Findings
The findings discovered that more than 50% of respondents perceived the language barrier as the major cause of work and social interaction and communication difficulties with multinational onboard workers (see Table 1). Simultaneously, disparities in cultures and accents and communication misunderstanding were also contributing elements to communication ineffectiveness, although the impacts were minimal, as depicted in Table 1. Furthermore, the comparison results between Indonesian seafarers' positive and negative responses in terms of interaction and communication on board (see Table 2) demonstrated that respondents were highly accepting of cultural diversity on board without feeling nervous and uncomfortable (67%). The positive response was exhibited through frequent communication, which excluded the isolation feeling and facilitated mutual interactions (87%). By focusing on personal linguistic competence, Indonesian seafarers considered personal English skills were sufficient to avoid misunderstanding (57%) compared to their counterparts who perceived otherwise (42%), although the percentage difference was insignificant. In relevance to linguistic skills, most Indonesian seafarers communicated via body language when lacking adequate English vocabulary knowledge (73.7%).  Intercultural communication did not influence most seafarers (71.3%) when communicating with other crews or passengers (when servicing a passenger ship, such as a cruise ship). Culturally, 67% of the respondents had never been offended, irritated, outraged, or received other types of unpleasant feelings by the voice and tonality of other multinational crews, especially when raising voices in delivering working instructions. The voice pitch difference across various nationalities is fundamental to cultural understanding. Bannet (1998) explicated the concept by employing a short example phrase, such as "come in," in a medium pitch drop to manifest the normal interaction, while an abrupt pitch drop might indicate vexation, frustration, anxiety, or impatience. Conversely, when the voice is elongated, assumptions are created about friendliness and relaxation. If native speakers speak in a loud, recurrent, and flat tone, the voice might suggest discourtesy. According to the current respondents' experiences, grouping with the same ethnicity existed among seafarers (40.4%), although the percentage was lower than their counterparts who preferred mingling with multinational crews (59.6%). Several seafarers were inclined to spend recess with similar groups, owing to high linguistic and cultural similarities, which would create a more comfortable circumstance for conversations and personal opinion sharing. Specifically, approximately 72% of seafarers acquired significant knowledge related to cultural differences before sailing.
Introducing cross-cultural understanding among seafarers is essential before sailing, as the process would sufficiently prepare the sailors to acknowledge dissimilitudes in various languages, cultures, customs, and behaviors of other seafarers. Concurrently, culture shock could be prevented upon commencing seafaring life on board. Most respondents perceived language and cultural awareness were the most vital aspects of maritime education and training (89%), while only several respondents considered the awareness insignificant (11%). As such, sociocultural learning could assist in harmonizing the work environment, with several categories identified to be equipped by seafarers (see Table 3). Nonetheless, the results demonstrated insignificant differences between five sociocultural understanding categories, which suggested that all categories could be integrated to facilitate work, and social interactions on board.

Discussion
The study findings postulated that Indonesian seafarers were positively predisposed to cultural diversity on board, in which intercultural communication challenges would not significantly and negatively impact personal job duties and social life at sea. Particularly, Indonesian seafarers were communicative and sociable, although the language barrier was the major communication hurdle discovered from the study results. Generally, Indonesian are amiable and welcome diversity, as contributed by the presence of different tribes, cultures, customs, and religions in the country. The ability to embrace differences allows Indonesian seafarers to perceive less solitude from family separation, therefore reducing work stress and loneliness. In addition, personality is posited to assist in overcoming challenges in different circumstances with various languages, cultures, and behaviors. Certain individuals could not effortlessly socialize and communicate with other individuals without being uncomfortable and anxious. Conversely, other individuals enjoy crowds, acquainting unfamiliar peers, and acquiring additional knowledge through frequent social interactions, which creates a pleasant and comfortable situation to mitigate feelings of loneliness, social isolation, depression, and anxiety due to huge workloads. Resultantly, potential mental health issues could be prevented.
Approximately 30% (56 out of 171) of the respondents conveyed personal worry and discomfort to socializing on board, with 22 respondents preferring less interaction owing to the language barrier. A majority of seafarers who commonly employed body language also stated that limited linguistic competence was the main contributing factor. Furthermore, the findings revealed approximately 28% of the respondents were distracted by intercultural communication during work duties. Simultaneously, the exclusion sign based on cultural membership during social interaction was evident, wherein 50% of the seafarers noticed certain peers limited personal interactions with counterparts from the same ethnicity or nationality. Thus, the findings propounded the formation of a restricted social circle among several crews on board, which excluded other ethnicities or nationalities. Nonetheless, the negative discovery could serve as an indicator to the Indonesian maritime education and training institutions to ensure seafarer candidates are well equipped with diverse linguistic and cultural knowledge. Further research is crucial to discovering a broader insight into intercultural communication to invite larger numbers of seafarers from other nationalities, particularly non-native English speakers.

Conclusion
As a universal language, communication ability in English is highly demanding for seafarers. The purpose of having communication skills is not only to facilitate work but also to maintain seafarers' social life on board with multinational crews. Understanding the culture of other crew's nationalities is another important part of this profession to avoid conflict and increase tolerance and respect among the crew. Regarding life at sea, this study concluded that most Indonesian seafarers possessed minimal intercultural communication difficulties with multinational crew members on board, although personal English competence did not achieve an advanced level. Specifically, the seafarers commonly employed body language to cope with the language barrier. Nevertheless, body language would occasionally be ineffective without possessing sufficient knowledge regarding the gesture's meaning, which might engender communication and interaction misunderstanding when certain gestures convey different meanings in specific nations. Therefore, a deep understanding and adequate acquisition of seamanship knowledge, particularly maritime English, could be accomplished by incorporating cross-cultural learning before commencing a sea voyage. Meanwhile, the current study demonstrated the potential value of maintaining positive seafarers' psychology and behaviors for personal well-being. Nonetheless, the study was limited in terms of surveying a small sample recruited from certain nationalities within a short period. Hence, further research is recommended to explicate intercultural communication among multinational seafarers from a broader perspective.