Language Management In Intercultural Public Health Crisis Communication During COVID-19 Pandemic In Weihai City

Intercultural crisis communication has emerged as a great challenge in the context of COVID-19.The present study’s significance lies in the demonstration of intercultural interactions for the ignored group,internationals,in China.The purpose of this thesis is to explore language management in intercultural public health communication in Weihai City,China.The author takes Language Management Theory(LMT)as the theoretical framework in identifying the mechanism of intercultural crisis communication between foreigners in Weihai and the government workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Weihai.The research took some long-term international residents in Weihai as the research subjects.It answers the following two research questions: 1)What is the mechanism of language management in intercultural public health crisis communication between Chinese institutional workers and foreigners in Weihai City during the pandemic? 2)What are the potentials for more effective language management in future intercultural public health crisis communication?This study adopts a mixed-method approach with the data being collected through questionnaire survey,semi-structured interviews,and the social media We Chat and each set of data being analyzed in different ways,leading to mutually supportive results and findings.The questionnaire results describe basic facts of intercultural communication on COVID-19 in Weihai.The interview obtains more stories and feelings of personal experiences to support the analysis.In addition,messages on We Chat including conversations in We Chat groups and news published by We Chat official accounts have been gathered for they are the first-hand information on interactions between institutional workers and internationals from We Chat.A four-stage model of language management in intercultural public health crisis communication(Problem Identification → Evaluation → Adjustment and Implementation→Feedback)has been applied in the analysis of interpretation of data from the questionnaire survey,interview and the social platform We Chat.Findings reveal the conflicts of language use between Weihai internationals and institutional workers,and provide a qualitative description of the rampant demand of language service.However,this research also argues that the needed multilingual interactions are absent in the stage of adjustment and implementation.The feedback stage stresses the need for multilingual environment and intercultural awareness.To answer the first research question based on the findings,the mechanism of language management in intercultural public health crisis communication between Chinese institutional workers and foreigners in Weihai City during the pandemic is recognized: Problem Identification(Conflicts of Language Use)→ Evaluation(Urgency of Language Service)→ Adjustment and Implementation(Absence of Improvements)→ Feedback(Need for Multilingual Environment and Intercultural Awareness).To answer the research question 2,there are three potentials identified for more effective language management in future intercultural public health crisis communication.This study recommends building up a system to cultivate urban multilingual talents to expand the reserve.Also,Chinese courses can be offered to fix the conflicts of language use in a way.Foreign residents asking for more translators and interpreters,signs,hand-outs,forms,notices and so on in different languages other than Chinese,intercultural awareness has to be taken into consideration so that information will be translated properly.This study has identified a language management model in intercultural crisis communication based on the collected data,which is static and lacks dynamics.Thus,it highlights the demand of dynamically intercultural interaction between the micro individuals and macro structure through reconstruction of the potential cyclic language management system in Weihai and elimination of language barriers.This research provides a channel for internationals to express their views of the current intercultural crisis communication mechanism,and more research in the field should be carried out in other cities in China.