Significant Language Barriers To Social Work To Provide Proper Services

Communication comes in many ways by its nature of different spoken languages. In that case, there are significant language barriers when all does not speak the same language. It conflicts a barrier for a social worker to provide proper services. According to Engstrom, Gamble, & Min (2009, 210), “Language barriers affect many different populations”. It follows that communication was the main factor to work with clients, but language barriers can also be a circumstance that impacts a social worker to provide proper services.
The objective of a social worker was to support clients and connect them to their community to become more self-sufficient and stable along accommodating the client cultural to the support. Engstrom, Gamble, & Min (2009,
Pekerti & Thomas (2015, 2) argues that “culture influences communication behaviors in different situations”. This suggests that a client communication may be influenced its culture. If the communication method of the client culture is recognized, the social worker can approach the client assistances in a culturally appropriate manner.
Recognizing a client culture, etiquette, it is ideal to identify the client culture, communication style to benefit better communication between a social worker and the client. Pekerti & Thomas (2015, 5) argues that “Understanding dominant communication styles used in different cultures is an important step in understanding the behaviors of individuals from different cultures”. It can be seen that if the effort to perceive a client culture communication styles it can enhance the knowledge of the client culture and its communication
With the recognition to address language barrier using pictographs can improve cross-cultural communication. A pictograph is an image display that contains symbols and terms to carry out a message to explain in details of the endorsement effect. Pictograms are a visual language aim to establish the most important type of communication using visual language to transcend language barriers. Nakamura & Zeng-Treitler (2012, 535) argues that “Languages allow us to communicate with each other in a relatively effortless way because they rely on many types of conventions”. It is a language that enables the essential meaning to be understood visually at a glance, irrespective of differences of culture or language.
Pictograms are used in the Medical Health industry to improve the communication with people who speak different languages. Choi (2001, 2993) argues that “As a universal language to communicate with people speaking different languages, pictographs can be an efficient tool to improve healthcare education for this underserved population”. A pictograph is a powerful tool to use for cross-cultural communication.
The ability to have and create pictograph will enhance cross-cultural communication. Nakamura and Zeng-Trietler (2012, 549) argues that “There is a good chance that pictographs created using a combination of representational strategies may yield