Weather events in air traffic control standards and communication

discourse patterns and implications for language teaching and assessment

Abstract

Weather events affect air traffic control (ATC) in many ways, for there are many situations that need to be reported in pilot-controller communication. This paper attempts to analyze the language used to express the impact of meteorological phenomena to air traffic operations, particularly in regard to aeronautical English, that is, the communication used during radiotelephony by air traffic controllers in training situations. For that, two types of analyses will be carried out: one regarding the formulaic structure of lexical units using 11 Aeronautical Meteorology terms within the ATC context (phase 1); and another one concerning the use of these terms by students in three ATC courses (for TWR, ACC and APP facilities) and how it affects their performance during communication activities in a learning environment (phase 2). These analyses will be based on rationales of lexical semantics for terminology; corpus linguistics (CL), comprising English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and learner corpora; and considerations about vocabulary assessment on aeronautical English exams. Results suggest that terminological patterns discussed in this paper show how meaning is dependent on context, and how lexical semantic analysis of terms may contribute to reveal nuances of language used in a specialized context. In this way, it indicates courses have been efficient in teaching and practicing the use of the main meteorological terms related to aeronautical English and that, despite some mistakes students make, evidence points out that they are able to report weather conditions to pilots and to understand pilots’ requests in a proficient level concerning vocabulary.