Communication is way more than language
Our motivation
Why this topic?
As multicultural volunteers in Wien, we noticed the huge impact of language barrier and some of its negative consequences. It is a problem as old as time, but we carried a small research for getting to know the magnitude of this problem nowadays and the way of fixing things as the group of youngsters that we are.
Vienna in figures
This graphic shows the percentage of Viennese residents with a foreign background compared to the total population in each of the 23 districts. Especially the 5th (Margareten), the 10th (Favoriten), the 15th (Rudolfsheim-FĆ¼nfhaus) and the 20th district have a big share of residents with a foreign background. On the contrary, districts like Hietzing (13th), Donaustadt (22nd) and Liesing (23rd) have a lower share of residents with a foreign background. In total 41 percent of all residents of Vienna either have a foreign citizenship or were not born in Austria.
This graphic shows you the ten most common foreign nationalities in Vienna. Serbians, Turks and Germans combined make up about half of all foreign residents in Vienna. In general, most of the residents in Vienna, that have a foreign citizenship or were not born in Austria, come from member states of the European Union or other European countries. The biggest group of residents, who are not from Europe, come from Syria.
Besides normal residents, there are also a lot of students in Austria, especially in Vienna. This statistic shows the total number of students at Austrian universities (blue line) since the implementation of tuition fees in 2001. The orange line on the other side shows the share of foreign students in percent. Since 2001 there has been a steady increase of the percentage of foreign students; from 14.9 % in 2001 to 28.1 % in 2018. Therefore, the universities in Austria have become more international and diverse nearly each year.
If you compare this graphic to the one above, you can see, that about 10 % of all students in Austria are actually from Germany, since there are around 29,000 German students. Furthermore, there are a lot of students from Italy, especially from the northern region of SĆ¼dtirol, where German is the most common language. In general, a lot of the foreign students in Austria come from European countries.
For more information visit the website of the city of Vienna:
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Facts and figures on migration 2019 - Viennese population
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Or take a look at the following document about students in Austria:
Non-verbal communication
Communication impacts every aspects of our life, every single day! Even where we don't realise it!ā And this, not only when we communicate with people, but also between us and medias!
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"Oh but", you say, "it's just with languages, right?." Indeed, different languages is the most common form of communication barriers. But it is definitely not the only one! Actually, "spoken" language is only roughly 10% of how we communicate with each other. Crazy, right ?
Indeed, the way we communicate with each other goes more like this :
āaround 50% through body language (so things like eye contact, gestures, posture etc.)
around 40% through para-language (like the volume, tone, enthousiasm of your voice)
around 10% = spoken / written language (what people actually say and what they hear)
This means that what we see and feel is just as important as what we hear !
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We can separate communication in a few categories :
Verbal (both oral and written) : for example, spoken languages, sign language, or written text
Non-verbal : body language (eye contact, gestures, posture, etc.), para-language (tone, speed, volume, intonation of your voice)
Visual communication : through photos, art, charts and graphs, etc. This one is especially important in medias, from films, news and social media, to even publicity!
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See ? I told you communication had an impact on every aspect of our life !
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It is also interesting to note the impact that distance can have on communication. Communicating face-to-face versus communicating distanced will both come with their own set of challenges! In the case of distanced communication, like on the phone or through emails, not being able to see and/or hear and most importantly feel the other person's body language will create an extra barrier in the exchange. So removing the aspect of non-verbal communication adds an extra layer of difficulty in understanding each other.
A lot of miscommunication is also based on stereotypes and assumptions (because of cultural differences for exemple). These create filters on how we perceive others, how we proceed events and informations.
We have to remember that our individual expressions are not universal truths. It is good not to assume what people think before actually asking them, in order to prevent miscommuniction.
Those diverse worldviews needs to be not a barrier but a motor to innovation and creativity.
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Discrimination
All problems concerning interpersonal and intercultural communication are old: since the beginning of civilization, exchanges took place and they meant contrast. People from different communities found out that they were not the same ā traditions, language, appearance ā and the lack of knowledge and understanding of the āothersā raised hostile attitudes.
Unfortunately, not even the new technologies have made a real change. The problem is still there, and we suffer conflicts and discrimination due to these differences. Furthermore, globalization has brought ethnic diversity in every country, leading to more and more exchanges between ādifferentā people.
Here is where the so-called communicative barriers appear. They might bring very serious consequences, such as distrust or aggression, and there are many reasons why: the struggle to get the message causes frustration and many other factors in the interaction might be misunderstood (the manners, the tone, the speed of talkingā¦)
Actually, when we first meet a person or group of people, the first impression affects us a lot. Even if we were similar, growing up in a similar or identical environment ā same country, city or nationality ā we still will judge at first sight. Only based on that first judgement, we will decide if the person/group is:
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Not an enemy
Friend
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The intriguing question then isā¦ how do we fight something that happens that fast? It sounds as if it was out of our control, but if we are currently living in a society, it is because we have, somehow, managed it. In our team, we are different people, we donāt share the same ideology, background, culture nor beliefs (sometimes it seems as if only being young has brought us together!). We know for that very reason that communication barriers are sometimes imposed, sometimes abused, not only by others but also by ourselves. We want to implement this workshop precisely because we know how important is to step over prejudices and be open minded. A big message, sent by young people who can only share what theyāve learnt through games, discussion and ā once more ā exchange between very different people.