WHEN: Thursday Sept 6, 12-1pm
WHERE: Keats room, Psychology/Aviation building
WHAT: Cog seminar on 'Aviation Communication'
Abstract:
Between 1976 and
2000, more than 1,100 passengers and crew lost their lives in accidents in
which investigators determined that language had played a contributory role.Although Aviation
English has been established as the international language of aviation,
communication between pilots and Air Traffic Control (ATC) is still not always
error-free. Problems can be exacerbated when one or more of the speakers use
English as a second (or third) language. Conducted from a human factors
and a linguistic perspective, research on communication errors made by pilots
investigated the factors impacting on communication accuracy (including
workload, information density, rate of speech and native language). Results
from experiments conducted in a flight simulator and results from a recent
study of LiveATC recordings at Sydney airport will be presented.
Bio:
Dominique Estival
holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. As a linguist,
her research spans the computational modelling of language change, machine
translation, linguistic engineering, spoken dialogue systems and aviation
communication. As a pilot and a flight instructor, she has first-hand experience
of student pilots’ difficulties with radio communication and she studies how
pilot training, language background and contextual factors affect pilots’
ability to communicate while flying. Her recent book
“Aviation English: A lingua franca for pilots and air traffic controllers” will
soon appear in paperback.
