Resumen de Studying crashes to avoid clashes: A translational approach to develop terminological competence for aeronautic communication

Bo Hu, Hong Gao, Hexiong Wu, Wei Wang

• English

  Miscommunication in the cockpit or between pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs) could be fatal when they use English, the de facto language for international civil aviation. To ensure air safety, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has set up English proficiency requirements in Document 9835, calling for adherence to standardized terminology in aeronautic communication. For this reason, terminological competence proves a crucial challenge to non-native speakers of English and merits study from a variety of perspectives. Drawing from relevant work, the current study reports on a translational approach to developing terminological competence for student pilots attending a terminology course tailored to ICAO standards. By extracting subtitles from Mayday, a documentary series on air crashes, near-crashes, and crises, we built a specialized bilingual parallel corpus on aviation and analyzed terminological data against the inventory of events, domains, and sub-domains specified in Document 9835. Through the identification, elaboration, translation, and management of specialized terms, we explore the terminological competence development, and through follow-up interviews we identify the features of this course in shaping student pilots into domain experts qualified for aeronautic communication.

• 中文

  英语是国际民航的通用语言。机舱内或陆空通话中的交流失误会带来灾难性后果。为保障航空安全，国际民航组织在9835号文件中设定了专业英语水平要求，倡导在工作交流中优先使用标准化术语。培养母语为非英语者的民航术语能力成为当务之急。参考相关研究，面向飞行学员，设计基于国际民航标准的术语课程，提出促进术语能力的翻译路径。从《空中浩劫》系列记录片中提取字幕，通过翻译，建立专门领域英汉双语平行语料库，参照9835号文件所列事件、领域及子域，选择术语数据加以分析。从概念识别、意义细述、跨语对应和数据管理等方面，探讨航空术语能力的培养与发展；利用访谈，展现出课程把语言学习者培养成为领域专家的独特之处。