EXPLORING SOCIOPRAGMATIC FAILURE IN JAPANESE-INDONESIAN SAFETY DISCOURSE: A MEANING GAP ANALYSIS IN MULTINATIONAL MANUFACTURING ORGANIZATION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21009/ishel.v2i1.69016Keywords:
workplace safety discourse, sociopragmatic failure, meaning gap, cross-cultural communication, japanese manufacturingAbstract
Safety discourse is a crucial element in building a safety culture in manufacturing organizations. However, the effectiveness of safety discourse in multinational companies is not solely influenced by language clarity but also by the successful transformation of safety meanings across cultures. This study aims to explore how meaning gaps arise in Japanese–Indonesian workplace safety discourse, identify forms of sociopragmatic failure, describe the underlying factors, and analyze their implications for the effectiveness of safety discourse. The approach used in this study is exploratory qualitative with an interpretivist paradigm. Data collection was conducted through participant observation of chorei activities, toolbox meetings, safety briefings, safety patrols, in-depth interviews with Japanese management, national management, leaders, and Indonesian workers, and analysis of organizational safety documents. The analysis was conducted through identifying workplace safety discourse, meaning gaps, forms of sociopragmatic failure, causal factors, and their implications. The results show that the main problem in safety discourse is not linguistic barriers, but rather differences in the construction of institutional meaning. This study identifies six initial forms of sociopragmatic failure: priority gap, perspective gap, risk anticipation gap, knowledge gap, fatalistic belief gap, and symbolic understanding gap. These six categories conclude that safety discourse failures are more often triggered by differences in safety philosophies, cultural norms, hierarchical relationships, work experiences, and beliefs about risk than by limited language skills. This study proposes a meaning gap as a conceptual mechanism linking workplace safety discourse to sociopragmatic failure and offers an initial typology that extends the application of Thomas' (1983) sociopragmatic failure theory to the context of cross-cultural safety discourse.
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