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Ways to Improve Maritime English Proficiency among Seafarers to
Reduce Marine Accidents at Sea
Jayasri Jeevaji Ganaesan
Supervisor: Dr. Mohammed Ismail Russtam Suhrab
Bachelor of Science (Nautical Science and Maritime Transport)
School of Ocean Engineering
jayasrigeo@gmail.com
Nowadays, marine accidents alarmingly high at sea. One of the contributory reason
for marine accidents to happen is improper usage of maritime English in
communication. In this research, a study was conducted on improving maritime
English proficiency among seafarers to reduce the marine accidents at sea. The
common mistakes that seafarers make in communication when using maritime
English was determined and SPSS analysis has been used to analyse the data. The
data obtained by conducting questionnaire in the form of test among randomly
chosen 100 seafarers. As a result, a list of wrong words has been identified and some
of them failed to answer correctly. According to the findings, the wrong terminologies
that listed, subsequently tabulated to compare with SMCP 2001 using comparative
analysis. The comparison table helps to see the differences between improper and
proper maritime English terms. Besides, interview sessions were conducted with
selected former mariners to get their recommendations. The overall results
demonstrates the significance of improving the proficiency of maritime English so
that can reduce the marine accidents at sea and saves lives as well as properties.
Keywords— Communication, Maritime English, Marine Accidents and SMCP
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