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Проблемы межкультурной коммуникации подростков «ICONSPEAK JUNIOR»

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Яшина Д.Е. 1

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1МБОУ Гимназия № 4

Беляева И.М. 1

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1МБОУ Гтимназия № 4

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Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя II степени

Диплом школьникаСвидетельство руководителя

Introduction

Nowadays, teenagers often travel and sometimes go to the countries without knowing the foreign languages. This can cause some difficulties. Three friends from Switzerland: Florian, Stephen and George faced this problem while travelling and decided to solve it. They created an “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt with 39 functional icons that helped travelers to initiate communications and overcome language barriers. But, unfortunately, it is designed for adult travelers.

But what about teenagers? My peers can travel to other countries with their dancing or sport clubs, go to the foreign camps or conferences. My classmates face this problem when they take part in the exchanges with the Stamford school in the UK or when they travel around Europe. I experienced such difficulties myself when I visited Greece with my dance team.

I decided to create something similar for teens based on the “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt. I think such a T-shirt can solve some of the problems of a travelling teenager. It is my hypothesis.

The objective of the project is to create an “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” T-shirt.

Challenges:

To study the history and evolution of icons;

To study the history of the “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt for adults;

To contact the Swiss creators of the “ICONSPEAK” T-shirts for their permission to use their trademark in the project;

To make a survey among the classes to find out what icons are necessary on a teenage T-shirt, and which ones should be removed;

To make a T-shirt model for teenagers and print it;

To conduct a game to find out the effectiveness of the T-shirt.

Research Methods:

The study of literature and information resources in the Internet;

Comparison and analysis;

Survey and testing.

The theory The history of icons

I find it difficult to select the right icons for teenage without learning their history and evolution.

Pictograms were popular in ancient times, before people invented the alphabet. This is probably the most ancient form of writing. What is a pictogram? Pictogram (from the Latin. pictus - painted and the Greek. γράμμα - record) – a sign that shows the most important parts of the object or phenomenon. [1]

The history of icons goes back to ancient times and is associated with the birth of writing. Ancient people used pictograms, simple images which were understood by everyone: sun, water, moon. Pictographic letter was used for writing in different cultures: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese, Aztec etc.

Then society developed together with writing. So the ideograms, where the icon was one of the elements, appeared. The ideograms gave birth for Chinese writing and the art of calligraphy.

But when the alphabet was invented, pictography as a means of communication was forgotten for many centuries.

The revival of pictograms was connected with the Olympic movement. In 1936 in Berlin, 49 countries used icons of Olympic sports that were understandable to all participants. Even now sport icons are the important parts of each Olympic Games. The first informative Olympic pictograms appeared in London in 1948.

Then icons became popular all over the world. Operating system Windows 3.0, presented in 1995, contained understandable icons “House”, “Portfolio”, “Basket”. Now all computers, programs and files have icons, understandable in every country. Thus, icons are the parts of the graphical user interface of the computer system. [2]

Currently, we cannot imagine our life without icons. Interface of modern gadgets is based on them. Little signs, arrows and drawings contain a lot of information.

The history of the “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt

All travelers face the language barrier. They cannot explain what they are looking for (a hotel or medical help), if they do not know the local language.

Three Swiss friends found an original solution to this problem, after they had faced it in April 2013. Their motorbike was broken in the middle of the road in Vietnamese backcountry and it turned out that asking for help was not so easy. The locals could not understand them. Then, the travelers tried to draw the simple symbols of their request. And it helped them! So, during their trips Florian, George and Stephen often used the same technique by drawing the symbols on sheets of paper, maps or on the ground. [3]

So, they got a brilliant idea to put the most useful icons on the shirt, which can be used to show and explain what you want.

Unique T-shirt was called “ICONSPEAK”. It has 39 small icons, which depict symbolic images (water, food, watch, WC, various types of transport, etc.), which are necessary for a traveler. You can just point to the proper icon and people all over the world will understand you.

By the end of 2015, the Swiss launched an online sale of their T-shirts. To promote their brand, they created an information resource on the Internet: https://iconspeak.world and they also used different social networks.

Nowadays “ICONSPEAK” company produces different products: T-shirts, hoodies, bags, phone cases. There are products specifically released to any significant events, for example, to the Olympics in Rio. [7]

The creators of “ICONSPEAK” believe that their product is not a substitute for the live communication. Swiss friends say learning languages is important and their T-shirt can even help this. You can ask your question with this T-shirt, but you will get a foreign answer.

The Practical Part The preparatory phase

After studying the problems and issues on the topic, I contacted the creators of the “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt for permission to use their brand and content of their information resources in my project. During our communication the “ICONSPEAK” owners gave me information for the theoretical part and permission.

Picture 1

Letter from “ICONSPEAK” company

The research

To understand how a teenage T-shirt should look like, and how it should differ from an adult one, I decided to conduct a survey among the students of our school.

First, I prepared a brief presentation and told my peers about the adult “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt and the challenges of my project. I printed the questionnaires for each student and gave them the testing images of the “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt.

Pictures 2,3

Filled questionnaires

All students who believe that this problem is urgent were suggested to answer four questions.

In the first section of the survey I wanted to find out which of the icons on an adult t-shirt are useless for teenagers. I chose 12 icons and asked students to tick the unnecessary.

In the second paragraph, students should tick the icons that are useful for a teenage T-shirt. I suggested 11 new images or students could add their own ones.

Some icons on the shirt “ICONSPEAK” are not clear to me. Therefore, in the third paragraph I wanted to learn the opinion of students.

There were some useful words with several icons for each. To choose the most suitable icon for the shirt, I offered 10 words and 2 icons to choose from.

The analysis of the survey results

60 students of the sixth and eighth grades took part in my survey. All students considered the issue and answered the questions. I examined the questionnaires and got the following data.

The table below presents the voting results in descending order according to the icons that teenagers want to exclude:

Diagram 1

Answers for the first question

More than half of the teenagers voted for the exclusion of “Beer”, “Canister” and “Peace”. “Evening” was voted the least, so we have kept it in our shirt.

The next table shows the voting results in descending order according to the icons we should add in a teenage T-shirt:

Diagram 2

Answers for the second question

The most of proposed words have gained more than 50% of the votes, except the icons “Dance” and “Electricity”. The symbol for “Electricity”, which scored the least amount of votes, we excluded.

Students could offer their own versions of concepts. Unfortunately, not everyone has carefully considered the proposed T-shirt and pointed out those things that it already has or those that were offered by us:

• Shop

• Football/soccer field

• Park

• Music

• Police

• Food

• Sea

• Wi-fi

• Computer

• Hotel

• Disco

Some students proposed words shown with the existing icons. For example, “Bookstore” consists of the terms “Book” and “Store”, so we did not add them on the shirt.

Other symbols offered to the students were:

• Cafe

• School

• Game console

• Sports

• Sushi

• Pizza

• Shoes/Shoe store

• Observation deck

• Metro

The most frequent words “Sushi”, “Pizza” and “Café”. Unfortunately, we are unable to add them all, so we replaced them by the unified symbol of “Fast food”.

For testing our product we used the game. Thus, we needed to find out how students would understand our icons. There are the results of testing below:

For part of the icons we have received clear answers, such as “Fire” and “Music”. Part of the icons have a different interpretation, for example, “Game” – “the Ball” and “Beach” – “Water”.

The table below presents the results of a survey on the selection of the most popular icons. We made our T-shirt according to the results of our survey.

I analyzed the test results. Then I printed all the selected icons in real and tried to place them on a T-shirt.

Picture3

Idea of an “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” T-shirt

Here I faced a problem. As a teenage T-shirt is smaller than an adult one, it does not fit all 39 icons. So I had to exclude one line (5 icons). I left the most popular icons, according to the test results.

Then, I tried to group the icons in a certain order for easier use. I got five columns on topics: “travel”, “equipment”, “life”, “leisure” and “food”.

Picture 4

“ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” T-shirt sample for printing

With the help of my parents I have studied the proposals of printing companies to print my T-shirts. We chose the most popular company with the highest number of good reviews (“yaMayka”), where My T-shirt was printed.

Picture 5

My T-shirt

T-shirt testing

To find out whether the shirt “works”, we need to understand if it is simpler and easier to communicate by means of icons on a T-shirt or by miming.

To test my “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” T-shirt I invented a game, based on the rules of a guessing game. I prepared 24 cards with the tasks. I have chosen for explanation situations that a teenager might face abroad:

• Where is the bookstore?

• Where can I buy souvenirs?

• Let’s go to the cinema tonight?

• What is the Wi-Fi password?

• Where can I fix my camera?

• Where is the amusement park?

• I like this music, and you?

Each game card contains also the symbol of a hand or a T-shirt, it means the way of explanation.

Students took turns and chose the card. They had 30 seconds to explain the phrase using the T-shirt or miming, according to the symbol on their card.

Picture 6

Game cards

26 students of the sixth and the seventh forms took part in our game. You can see the results in the table below.

The average percent of correct answers:

Miming – 20.8%

Using the T-shirt - 77.6%

Diagram 3

Game answers

The use of the “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” T-shirt is four times more effective than miming.

The evolution of the project

The project “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” was interesting not only to me but to other students. So I decided to continue.

With the help of parents and teachers of Informatics I have created a website http://iconspeak-junior.ru on which I have published a description of the project and my presentation. Then I made some changes to the survey and conducted it in the Internet. At the moment 121 people have voted online. The results of the online survey are practically the same as the ones in the school. To expand the audience I have created an English version of the site http://iconspeak-junior.ru/en/.

The results of the project were sent to the authors of the original “ICONSPEAK” T-shirt. They thanked me for the interest to that topic and praised my work.

Picture 7

Letter from “ICONSPEAK” company

Conclusion

Working on the project, I studied the history and evolution of icons, studied the project “ICONSPEAK”. As a result, I created the “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR” T-shirt according to the opinion of teenagers participating in the test. I made the T-shirt that passed the test.

My hypothesis, that our T-shirt could solve some of the problems of a travelling teenager, was confirmed. My game has proved that the T-shirt is four times more efficient mean of communication compared to miming.

I believe that my project can have a practical application. If we combine icons with the logo of our Gymnazium, this T-shirt will be a good gift to the foreign guests of our school. It will also help school groups travelling abroad.

This topic has caused great interest among my peers. No one had ever heard of “ICONSPEAK” and almost all thought it was important and necessary invention for travelers.

During my last visit to England I took my T-shirt and decided to test it among common people on the street. When I used icons all Englishmen understood me. My T-shirt really works! I believe that my T-shirt reaches its main goal – overcoming language barriers in the beginning of the communication.

Sources

Википедия статья Pictogram [Электронный ресурс] / свободная энциклопедия /Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2018 — Режим доступа: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram, свободный. Загл. с экрана. — Яз. англ.

Википедия статья Иконка_(графический_интерфейс) [Электронный ресурс] / свободная энциклопедия /Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2017 Режим доступа: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Icon_(computing), свободный. — Загл. с экрана. — Яз. англ.

Iconspeak [Электронный ресурс] / электронный магазин / Iconspeak, 2018 — Режим доступа: https://iconspeak.world, свободный. Загл. с экрана. — Яз. англ.

(ПМ) пиктомания [Электронный ресурс] / справочник: знаки, символы, пиктограммы / Novikov Design, 1998 — Режим доступа: http://picto.mania.ru, свободный. Загл. с экрана. — Яз. рус.

Пиктограммы Олимпийских игр [Электронный ресурс] / Сайт для практикующих и начинающих дизайнеров / Infogra.ru, 2017 — Режим доступа: https://infogra.ru/design/piktogrammy-olimpijskih-igr, свободный. Загл. с экрана. — Яз. рус.

Instagram страница Iconspeak [Электронный ресурс] / социальная сеть / Instagram, 2018 Режим доступа: https://www.instagram.com/iconspeak/, свободный. — Загл. с экрана. — Яз. англ.

Facebook страница Iconspeak [Электронный ресурс] / социальная сеть / Facebook, 2018 Режим доступа: https://www.facebook.com/iconspeak/, свободный. — Загл. с экрана. — Яз. рус., англ.

Twitter страница Iconspeak [Электронный ресурс] / социальная сеть / Twitter, Inc., 2018 Режим доступа: https://twitter.com/ICONSPEAK/, свободный. — Загл. с экрана. — Яз. рус., англ.

Google+ страница Iconspeak [Электронный ресурс] / социальная сеть / Google, 2018 Режим доступа: https://plus.google.com/ 113379399142131117026, свободный. — Загл. с экрана. — Яз. рус., англ.

Iconspeak Junior [Электронный ресурс] / сайт проекта / Яшина Диана, 2018 Режим доступа: http://iconspeak-junior.ru, свободный. — Загл. с экрана. — Яз. рус., англ.

Appendix 1

ICONSPEAK original

Appendix 2

ICONSPEAK JUNIOR

Appendix 3

Correspondence

Appendix 4

Rules of the game “ICONSPEAK JUNIOR”

На доске вешается плакат с иконками «ICONSPEAK JUNIOR».

Ведущий:

• Раздает всем пустые листочки.

• Раскладывает карточки текстом вниз.

• Объясняет правила игры.

• Выбирает первого объясняющего.

Объясняющий:

• Вытягивает задание.

• Он или ведущий называет номер задания, все записывают на листке номер.

• В зависимости от рисунка ладошки или футболки пытается за 20-30 секунд объяснить фразу из задания.

• Ведущий следит за временем.

• Все остальные записывают на листочки за номером задания то, что они поняли. Если не поняли, после номера ставят прочерк.

Ведущий выбирает нового объясняющего и т.д., пока не кончатся карточки.

Ведущий собирает листочки.