Aviation Radiotelephony Discourse: An Issue of Safety 217- Managing the pilot-controller relationship
- Managing the dialogue
The ‘triggering actions’ category is defined as the core function of
radiotelephony communications. Supporting the core is the ‘sharing
information’ category in the sense that appropriate actions can only be
triggered when the pilot and air traffic controller are in possession of
sufficient shared information about the current situation of flight
operation. The final two categories play a subordinate mediating role with
regard to the first two.
The category ‘triggering actions’ is realized through orders, requests
and offers to act, advice, permissions and undertakings. Managing the
relationship between a pilot and an air traffic controller comprises such
communicative functions as greeting/leave-taking; thanking; responding to
greeting/leave-taking; responding to thanks; complaining; expressing
dissatisfaction; reprimand; apologising; expressing satisfaction; expressing
concern/apprehension; reassuring; encouraging.
The category ‘managing the dialogue’ comprises the following: self-
correction; paraphrasing; closing an exchange; requesting response;
checking understanding; checking certainty; correcting a misunderstanding;
reading back; acknowledging; declaring non-understanding; requesting
repetition; requesting confirmation; requesting clarification; giving
confirmation; giving disconfirmation; giving clarification; relaying an
order; relaying a request to act; relaying a request for permission.
Due to the strong focus on safety, contextual factors may result in
certain functions being more or less ‘marked’ for different attitudes such
as politeness, insistence and so on. Many communicative functions are
paired with one another. That is to say that a given function (e.g.,
requesting permission) is commonly adjacent to another given function
(e.g., giving permission) in the context of radiotelephony exchange (Mell
and Godmet 2002).
The vast bulk of studies of radiotelephony communication concern the
language of exchanges between pilot and air traffic controller or various
possible situations affecting the effectiveness of the language use. The
studies consider the radiotelephony communication phenomenon with a
reflection on its regulated status; the lexis and structures used are incorrect
if they deviate from their prescribed standard (Monteiro 2012; Lopez et al.
2013).
However, although pilots and air traffic controllers are crucial to
radiotelephony discourse analysis, as they are authors of radiotelephony
discourse and other interactional practices, they are not the only