LINGUIST List 10.1848

Wed Dec 1 1999

Sum: Query 10.1759 Air Traffic Controller Language

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

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  • Raija Solatie, for Query:10.1759:Air Traffic Controller Language

    Message 1: for Query:10.1759:Air Traffic Controller Language

     Date: Mon, 29 Nov 99 14:23:55 PST
    From: Raija Solatie <raija.solatiekolumbus.fi>
    Subject: for Query:10.1759:Air Traffic Controller Language


    Dear Colleagues,

    First of all I want to thank everybody who took contact with me to help me with my project concerning the air traffic language. My first impression of the messages is that the problems of this special kind of language have already woken some interest in several countries of the world. So, I am not the first one to do research on it. The air traffic language is very special in its formulation and its regulation. I would say, that it is not clearly a pure language at all. It is rather a manner of communication with its own special syntax, semantics and phonological system. I also have good possiblities to get involve in almost every kind of its problems, because my brother is an air traffic controller who just works as Head, ATC-section in the Civil Aviation Administration in Helsinki, doing statistics on complicated situations which cause dangerous incidents in the air traffic. For exemple, we all have to remember the terrible accident in Tenerife, in 1977, when 583 people were killed because of misunderstandig of some words in communication between the air traffic controller and the pilot. After that accident, the air traffic language was put on research and some words were changed, so as some syntactic structures. The task of a linguist is to explain grammatical systems to his colleagues. He writes to his own public and resolves linguistical problems puttings them in differents forms. But the research on the "air traffic language" is a special case of study for the linguist. When, finding some missing or negative points of view in the whole system the language, he also can influence the use of "air traffic language" in general and propose some modifications for getting better the communication between them who work in human relationships in our most developed manner of human contact, in our possiblity to fly. For exemple, in the "air traffic language" you say "negative" instead of "not".

    I want to thank the followings persons who have helped me with my new project:

    Immanuel Barshi Isabelle Leglise Joan Colman Carson T. Schutze Malcah Yaeger-Dror Zouhair Maalej Scott Delancey Bob Kuhs Kent Jones Barry Schaffer Alex Hoyet Pim van der Eijk Anthony Fox Betsy MacCall Hannele Dufva Michael Dunn Adrian Clynes Susan Converse Geoffrey Sampson Carolyn Hartnett

    >From Finland Mrs Raija Solatie