Designing the Radiotelephony Plain English Corpus (RTPEC): A specialized spoken English language corpus towards a description of aeronautical communications in non-routine situations

Abstract

Pilots and air traffic controllers need to undergo a specific English test in order to be granted a license for international operations. A language proficiency scale was developed to serve as a parameter to all aviation regulatory agencies throughout the world by targeting the language produced specifically by air traffic controllers and pilots in radio communications when non-routine situations (such as technical problems, bird strike, changes in weather, health problems on board, etc.) occur (ICAO 2010). However, there is a lack of empirical investigation which could shed light upon this particular register helping the users of the scale with its understanding. In an attempt to fill this gap, this paper outlines a compilation of the Radiotelephony Plain English Corpus (RPTEC), a spoken corpus of aeronautical communication consisting of transcriptions of exchanges between pilots and air traffic controllers in non-routine situations for research and pedagogical purposes. By presenting steps taken during the process, we intend to provide fellow researchers with data which may suit other purposes and yield further analyses, as well as enlighten similar investigations in the field of English for Specific Purposes.

The case of task-oriented, <em>polite</em> discourse in intercultural aviation and customer service interactions

“…The RTPEC is based on an ICAO list of 33 different categories of 'abnormal' occurrences, from bird strikes to equipment malfunctions. Prado and Tosqui-Lucks (2019) included events from each of these 33 non-routine categories and have begun analyzing the data further for patterns and insights into the use of plain language.…”

Overcoming Challenges in English for Aviation Maintenance: Technical Publications Selection for the Construction of a Corpus and Its Use to Teach Language Aspects Considering Learners Needs

“…Also based on a corpus of manuals, Bocorny [33] [34] analysis helped to understand polylexical units in this type of document. In addition to these studies, those by Zuppardo [35] and Prado and Tosqui-Lucks [36] were also based on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of corpus linguistics.…”

“…It should be emphasized, as it was done by Prado and Tosqui-Lucks [39] about their corpus, that this corpus also focuses on a very specific area, the aircraft maintenance. Considering it is within a particular field, the aviation, it might not only enable linguistic investigations but also "offer the opportunity to bring authentic language to the classroom, supplying the language professional with adequate tools to teach from meaningful input" [39] (p. 125).…”

The vocabulary of aviation radiotelephony communication in simulator emergencies and the contradictions in air traffic controller beliefs about language use

“…A second corpus study by Prado and Tosqui-Lucks (2019) compiled examples of non-routine situations for research purposes and classroom use. Their goal was to collect unusual situations, so that they would have a database of plain language use.…”

“…Each transcript began when a problem was first mentioned and finished when the problem was solved or handed to another professional. Prado and Tosqui-Lucks (2019) used this corpus to examine word frequency and are currently conducting research on the structure and vocabulary areas of the ICAO language proficiency requirement (LPR) rating scale (which can be found in ICAO ( 2018)) and plan to also use the corpus to investigate fluency and interaction according to the proficiency scale. The authors have used the corpus to examine how plain language is used in aviation radiotelephony with a focus on how this is represented in the ICAO LPR rating scale (for information about the rating scale see, for example: Farris (2016aFarris ( , 2016b).…”