By Amy Takebe
No matter where we live, access to information in a language that we can understand during disasters is a human right. In Japan, a highly hazard-prone country with over 4 million residents and tens of millions of international visitors annually, the challenge of reaching culturally and linguistically diverse audiences is ever evolving. While Japanese is the dominant language in Japan, there are also distinct regional dialects spoken throughout the country. Further, Japanese Sign Language is used as are Indigenous languages, immigrant languages like Korean and Chinese, and many other languages spoken by foreign visitors.
Adding complexity to this picture, information about impending threats across Japan is communicated with more than just words. Sounds, colors, novel content layouts, and images like maps and pictograms are used to convey emergency messages more effectively. My recent research examines how the moment-by-moment interplay of language and other meaning-making resources shapes the effectiveness of public broadcast tsunami warnings. This work demonstrates the importance of urgently conveying complex information in inclusive ways.
The Evolution of Tsunami Warnings in Japan
Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), Japan’s only public service broadcasting agency, plays an important role in providing timely and accurate hazards information to viewers, including multilingual communities. I examined NHK tsunami warnings between 2010 and 2024 to track changes in language use and the inclusion of meaning-making resources that shape the presentation of emergency broadcasts.
Over the years, NHK’s approach has changed significantly, in part due to the devastation of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, widely referred to as the 3.11 disaster in Japan. Warnings before the 3.11 disaster mostly focused on providing basic information about things like tsunami arrival time and wave height, with little instruction on how people should act in response to the looming threat.
In contrast, warnings broadcast after the 3.11 disaster use a more imperative and directive tone to urge the audience to protect themselves. My analysis of the first five minutes of a 2016 broadcast demonstrates that shift, with the message sugu nigete (“evacuate now” in Japanese) written in large font and displayed prominently in a red rectangle at the top center of the screen. The design elements are simple and eye-catching, and the language, which is written in a form of Japanese known as hiragana, is clear and urgent. Still, there are no instructions in languages other than Japanese.
Left: A 2016 tsunami warning broadcast by Japanese public broadcasting agency NHK. Right: The same information translated into English by the author. Source: Amy Takabe, 2024.
Attempts to Reach Multilingual Communities
A more recent tsunami warning broadcast from 2024 demonstrates efforts to better reach multilingual communities. For instance, a Japanese Sign Language interpreter appears on top of the screen, along with the English and hiragana captions. The screen not only shows the caption “EVACUATE!” in English but also displays an adjacent red and yellow pictogram, illustrating a tsunami threat.
An instruction, “TSUNAMI Multiple Languages on Audio Subchannel, Radio 2,” is placed at the bottom of the screen to direct multilingual audiences to automated audio messages in English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Portuguese. Additionally, reports from an English-speaking announcer are available in the main broadcast by switching the audio setting.
Left: A tsunami warning broadcast by the Japanese public broadcasting agency NHK on April 3, 2024. Source: NHK Archives for Academic Research Program. Right: The same information translated into English by the author. Source: Amy Takabe, 2024.
Despite these efforts, the busy broadcast design may also contribute to a convoluted, confusing, or incomplete message for those receiving the warning. Even a cursory glance illustrates how the screen is overwhelmed with information in Japanese. Further complicating matters, the instruction to switch the audio setting only appears at the bottom of the screen, leaving non-Japanese speaking viewers searching for the extra step they may need to take to get detailed tsunami information in another language.
While the announcer directs the viewers in Japanese to evacuate to a higher ground or stay away from the river mouth, the English warning (“EVACUATE”) at the top of the screen is incomplete without information about where to retreat. Overall, even though the amount of information for multilingual audience has increased in the 2024 warning, the display layout and the directive do not actually accommodate the needs of multilingual audience. Despite the increase in the amount of information for a multilingual audience, the display layout and the directive have the potential to hinder non-Japanese viewers from receiving the message.
Designing More Inclusive Disaster Warnings
Designing a warning that is actionable and inclusive for people of different linguistic backgrounds is a challenge that has vexed researchers and practitioners.
For multilingual disaster warnings, warning senders working in the dominant language should not only focus on accurately translating information but also pay close attention to the elements they take for granted, such as the quality of the message and the visual design. For instance, in the case of NHK’s tsunami warning, instead of simply displaying the caption “EVACUATE” on screen in English, part of the screen could be dedicated to displaying areas that are generally considered dangerous or safe with illustrations and symbols to reach a wider multilingual audience that may not be familiar with tsunami hazards.
Conceptualizing disaster warnings as a social process can also be a key to making them effective. For a mass media broadcasting agency in a multicultural and multilingual country, customization can be a dynamic challenge. That’s why it is crucial to include multilingual speakers’ perspectives in the disaster warning design process. By embracing a participatory approach and seeking feedback from diverse audiences along the way, public agencies like NHK can design warnings that cut through the noise and inspire life-saving actions during disasters.
Amy Takebe is an associate professor in applied linguistics at Otaru University of Commerce, Center for Language Studies (Japan). She holds a PhD in english from Oklahoma State University. Her areas of research center around breaking language barriers in disaster contexts from applied linguistic angles. Her recent research projects include examining the intricate relationship between linguistic production and social identities in risk communication contexts, as well as designing language learning curricula for multilingual disaster volunteers. She is a Bill Anderson Fund alum.