What differences in pronunciation and intonation need to be considered when working with culturally diverse clients in a health care situation?

Consider the following scenarios and then answer the questions for each scenario:

Scenario 1 Indian-Australian women working in a cafe were seen as surly and uncooperative. When serving food, an Anglo-Australian assistant would offer ‘gravy’ with a rising intonation, while the Indian-Australian women would say the same word with a falling intonation. To many people, this sounded like a statement of fact rather than a question and was often interpreted as rude. Listening to taped sequences of this type, Indian-Australian women at first could not hear any difference. Only after training did they recognise the difference. What differences in pronunciation and intonation need to be considered when working with culturally diverse clients in a health care situation?

Scenario 2 A Vietnamese man was called into court as a witness for a Jordanian workmate, who had been in an accident and hurt his back. The Jordanian had been forced to take six months off work. In the court, the Vietnamese man was asked, ‘When he returned to work six months after the accident, you didn’t see him doing any heavy work, did you?’ The Vietnamese man answered yes, and nodded his head. In fact, what the Vietnamese man wanted to say was that the Jordanian had not done any heavy work. His ‘yes’ answer actually meant, ‘Yes, I agree with your question, “he wasn’t doing any heavy work”‘. But due to his culture and the style of his native language, he did not answer the way an Anglo-Australian would have; he did not say, ‘No, I didn’t see him do any heavy work.’ This led to some confusion in the court. You are conducting a health assessment with this Vietnamese man. How would you phrase questions in the health assessment interview to ensure that there is no misunderstanding between ‘no’ and ‘yes’. Give two (2) examples of questions that you would use.