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

Abstract

Aviation English and Corpus Linguistics have been put together and focused by some investigations especially those regarding Aeronautical English (the language used between pilots and air traffic controllers in international radiotelephony communications). However, English used in aviation maintenance, specifically in written documents, has not been as much researched. This paper briefly explains the main concepts considering Aviation English and presents-based on previous researches-aircraft maintenance professionals' needs and regulatory agencies' requirements related to language proficiency. Afterwards, it summarizes information about the most important technical publications for aircraft maintenance and describes the compilation of the Corpus of documents related to aviation maintenance (CoDoRAM). At the end, some ways the corpus can be used to teach vocabulary and grammar in English are pointed out. Although corpus compilation and analysis have been proved to be valuable for research and instructional purposes, most of publications encompass English for academic purposes teaching context. For that reason, this is a way to inspire new projects related to English used in aviation maintenance and the use of corpora in English for specific purposes classes.

Meta-Analytical Approach to the Impact of Corpus-Driven Teaching on Foreign Language Acquisition

“…e overview is more convincing. However, meta-analysis is not an actual study after all [11], but an integration of previous studies. erefore, the applicability of the study results may also consider the influence of factors such as study design and study participants.…”

Language of Aircraft Documentation: Using a Multilingual Corpus in Collaborative Work in Lexicography and Pedagogy

“…For this reason, some countries, including Brazil, opt to teach professionals how to handle documentation in English (Almeida and Prado 2011;Terenzi 2021). Maintenance technicians, pilots, and flight attendants (among others) are required to take English proficiency exams assessing their reading and translation skills when they apply for jobs with airlines to demonstrate their ability to read manuals and documentation (Zhang et al 2020).…”

“…Maintenance technicians, pilots, and flight attendants (among others) are required to take English proficiency exams assessing their reading and translation skills when they apply for jobs with airlines to demonstrate their ability to read manuals and documentation (Zhang et al 2020). While some airlines offer their employees English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses focusing on reading aviation documents (Almeida and Prado 2011), it is common practice to include ESP modules in aviation-related courses (Terenzi 2021). These practices are especially feasible in Brazil because there are only three major airlines in the country, which ensures a concentration of standards.…”

“…Misinterpretation of aircraft manuals can lead to serious consequences, and aircraft maintenance engineers and pilots must receive appropriate training and education to understand the content of the manuals in addition to having access to up-to-date and accurate information. For this reason, a corpus of aviation documentation is of utmost importance as it can enable investigations of patterns affecting policies such as proficiency exams and language standardization such as the Simplified English initiative, pedagogical materials design for in-service (Almeida and Prado 2011) and future professionals (Terenzi 2021), and translation practices found in airlines (Liu 2020).…”

“…This paper describes the first phase of collaborative work by two higher education institutions that joined forces to build a corpus with a view to investigating the language of documentation for teaching purposes (following Bhatia 2022) as well as for lexicography purposes (following Peixoto 2020a, 2020b). The corpus will be used in (among others) designing a visual dictionary with collocates (Prado and Terenzi 2022), preparing pedagogical materials for aircraft maintenance personnel (Terenzi 2021), pilots, and air traffic controllers Tosqui-Lucks and Prado 2021), and constructing trilingual glossaries. This paper presents initial investigations from the corpus under construction.…”