Discourse analysis of airspeak between pilots and air traffic controllers at Ataturk International Airport in İstanbul: implications for aviation English courses

Airspeak, the language of the sky used between pilots and air traffic controllers, is an English-based language that has distinguishing features from standard English. This study aimed first at investigating what those distinguishing features of Airspeak are; second, in what ways these differences might cause miscommunication; and third, which aspects o f Airspeak should be considered when designing guidelines for English courses given to air traffic controller and pilot training students. To consider all these points, this research study was triangulated with recordings, questionnaires and interviews. I obtained nine hours o f recordings at Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul involving three operations o f air traffic controlling; Area Control, Approach Control and Tower-Ground Control. I transcribed the recordings to use as the major source of data. I supported my data with questionnaires and interviews. The participants who completed questionnaires were twenty-five pilots and twenty-five air traffic controllers. The purpose o f the questionnaires was to give an overall idea o f controllers. The purpose o f the questionnaires was to give an overall idea of problems in the use o f both standard English and Airspeak. The questionnaires contained sections on personal information, use of English in Airspeak and languagebased problems. In the interviews with ten pilots and ten air traffic controllers, reallife situations concerning Airspeak were discussed. In data analysis, I used a discourse analysis approach. I focused on communicative acts of Airspeak such as speech acts and adjacency pairs. I also indicated language-based problems to use as a basis for classroom guidelines. The results of this study indicate that the distinguishing Airspeak linguistic features include reduced syntactical forms, and specific vocabulary based on ICAO guidelines and standard English. In addition, the findings o f this study suggests that pronunciation and listening comprehension are the most important skills to improve. Suggestion for the classroom is to use actual recordings from controllers and pilots to teach. Airspeak. These are crucial for pilots and air traffic controllers, and lead to safety in the sky.