The Plural of Anecdote is not Data: A study on different worldviews held by Asian and European students of Nautical Sciences

Abstract

As long as maritime training remains mono-cultural, anecdotes of “the other” will flourish. Anecdotes told by lecturers who might have been active seafarers 20 years ago are probably spiced up to make the stories more effective. Hence, over time the anecdotes may turn into less trustworthy evidence of social differences. Data based on large samples, such as Hofstede’s sociological studies, may well reflect national averages, but it is a difficult undertaking to translate the data into useful descriptions to train seafarers for their first job on a vessel with a multi-cultural crew. There is a clear need for ethnographic studies on the different ways seafarers of different cultural backgrounds interpret situations they encounter in their profession. The studies need be contemporary since the rise of social media such as YouTube, Facebook and others may have changed the way in which representatives of different cultures view each other and the world in general. This study aims to shed some light on intercultural discourse. Students of Nautical Sciences from different cultures are asked to watch and comment on a video clip showing a situation that has, or could have, occurred at sea. The comments are analysed by means of qualitative and quantitative methods. The employed qualitative methods highlight the different world views the researchers can notice in the multicultural participants while the quantitative methods analyse to what extent the different attitudes are reflected in the linguistic patterns used to describe the observations. The study results in concrete examples of interculturally influenced descriptions of a particular scenario. The case (the video clip) together with the stories (the students’ comments) can then easily be used as examples when discussing possible cultural differences in the classroom; the clip can be shown, a summary of the comments can be distributed, and the topic itself can be discussed. The material can be backed up by theoretical knowledge or by the quantitative linguistic analysis.