This ethnographic case study analyses language and discursive practices used in the safety program of a mine located in northern Finland. The critical sociolinguistic analysis demonstrates that language problems are not considered in the program. However, the employees are obligated to take responsibility of shared understanding and safety even if they are not fully equipped to follow the company's preferred language practices.
Mining is a global business dominated by multinational corporations. However, mines themselves tend to be concentrated in peripheries where a mobile and multilingual workforce is recruited. Therefore, work communities in mines are linguistically and culturally diverse (Cornips & Muysken 2019). Mining is a high-risk business, and this paper analyses language and discursive practices by which safety is governed in a multilingual mine located in arctic Finland. The nexus of language, security, and production in mining work is analyzed by applying the Foucauldian concept of 'governmentality'. The data consists of ethnographic observations, recorded interviews and work-related documents. The critical sociolinguistic (Heller, Pietikäinen & Pujolar 2018) analysis demonstrates how the mine's safety program applies the logic of responsibilization and disciplinary strategies of surveillance, supervision and regulations to control the safety of work routines. The main apparatus of the safety program is a work card system. The work card frames shared understanding, safety, and production as the key elements to be controlled. However, language problems are not considered in this system: the work card does not give guidance on how to act if a shared understanding of tasks and risks is hard to achieve. Hence, the multilingual labor is subjected to the tensions of being responsible for workplace safety in a situation where they are not equipped to fully follow the company's preferred language practices. The impact of language and culture diversity on workplace safety could more systematically be considered in the safety program: alternative strategies such as audio-visual materials, color-coded signs, and hands-on training opportunities could be offered to employees who encounter language barriers (see De Jesus-Rivas et al., 2016).
References:
De Jesus-Rivas, M., Conlon, H. A., & Burns, C. (2016). The impact of language and culture diversity in occupational safety. Workplace Health & Safety, 64(1), 24– 27. https://doi.org/10.1177/2165079915607872
Cornips, L. & Muysken, P. (2019). Language in the mines: Introduction. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 258, 1–11.
Heller, M., Pietikäinen S. & Pujolar J. (2018). Critical Sociolinguistic Research Methods: Studying Language Issues that Matter. Routledge.
