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Designing Safety Instructions for Foreign-Language Audiences

This training module outlines best practices for creating safety instructions that cater to foreign-language audiences. It emphasizes a language-neutral approach to enhance comprehension among diverse groups, minimizing text by utilizing symbols and images where possible. Clear, non-threatening communication is vital for conveying risks without instilling fear. The guide discusses the importance of understanding cultural differences and preferred rhetorical styles in instruction design to ensure safety messages are both accessible and effective.

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Designing Safety Instructions for Foreign-Language Audiences

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  1. Designing Safety Instructions for Foreign-Language Audiences Jack Crawford LCC 3403B Training Module

  2. Overview • Benefits • Goals • Guide

  3. Benefits of a Language-neutral Approach • (Obviously) a larger audience can be reached since the instructions aren’t just targeted at those fluent in a specific language • It leads to simpler instruction sets, meaning everyone is more likely to pay attention to them

  4. Goals • To minimize amount of text • Replace text with recognized symbols where possible • Replace text with images where possible • When impossible to replace text, repeat in multiple languages • To avoid culture-specific terminology

  5. Guide for General Safety Instructions • Since communication is about risks, make an effort to avoid scaring the audience • No “horror stories” • Avoid statistics (i.e. __% of workers die from __) • Minimize ambiguity (very difficult when trying to remain language-neutral)

  6. Guide for Safety Instructions for Foreign-Language Audiences • Make a list of symbols that are universally understood in each targeted audience’s culture • Research the audiences’ preferred rhetorical styles – when text is necessary, write in a form more likely to be understood

  7. Example(s) of good vs. bad?

  8. References • Anderson, Paul. Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach. 8th ed. (Cengage, 2013) • Evia, Carlos and Ashley Patriarca. (2012). Beyond Compliance: Participatory Translation of Safety Communication for Latino Construction Workers. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 26(3), 340- 367. http://jbt.sagepub.com.prx.library.gatec h.edu/content/26/3/340.full.pdf+html

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