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Introduction
The language of international aviation communication, especially between pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs) via radiotelephony, is English. Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Aeronautical Telecommunications, in Volume II, Communications Procedures, and Chapter Five, Aeronautical Mobile Service (paragraph 5.2.1.1.1), recommends the following:
In general, the air-ground radiotelephony communications should be conducted in the language normally used by the station on the ground.
Pending the development and adoption of a more suitable form of speech for universal use in aeronautical radiotelephony communications, the English language should be used as such and should be available, on request from any aircraft station unable to comply with 5.2.1.1.1, at all stations on the ground serving designated airports and routes used by international air services.
However, the English of international aviation is not English for general purposes or English for international purposes. Aviation English is a language for specific purposes (see Douglas, 2000), but it is even more restricted than that. Much of the English of aviation can be classified as a code that is used in a very restricted context (see Cabre, Freixa, Lorente, & Tebe, cited in Sarmento, 2005, p. 2), known as standard phraseology. It can be seen, following Ragan (2007, p. 54), as a highly restricted register associated with "distinctive probabilities of discourse functions and choice of lexis and grammar."
Written communication typically takes place through maintenance and operations manuals, produced by the airline manufacturers and airline operators. Both types of document are safety-critical, but especially the operations manual's abnormal and emergency checklists, which provide information on how to cope with nonnormal situations (Sarmento, 2005). The language used in maintenance documents is also often known as "Simplified English" (see Shawcross, 1993).
Radiotelephony communication takes place between pilots and air traffic controllers, with standard phraseology at the core, and operational exchanges in plain English when phraseology is inadequate; such radiotelephonic communication is used almost exclusively for air-ground communication, to direct, inform, question, request, and respond, where the air traffic controller directs and controls pilots. The focus of the communication is aircraft takeoff and landing, flight navigation, and so on, and the channel used is spoken, via radiotelephony.
Although the acoustic quality of radiotelephony is often...