English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

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English for Specific Purposes

journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/esp/default.asp

The development, evaluation and application of an aviation

radiotelephony specialised technical vocabulary list
Jenny Drayton, Averil Coxhead*
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standard phraseology is an integral
Available online 31 October 2022 element of aviation radiotelephony (two-way radio) communication between air traffic
controllers and other aviation personnel. A key issue with standard phraseology in this
Keywords: context is uncertainty as to its role. This is important in the aviation setting as miscom-
Aviation industry language training munication can lead to accidents. This paper presents a corpus-based Tower Aviation
Aviation technical vocabulary
Radiotelephony Technical Vocabulary List (TARTVL) that is derived from ICAO standard
Aviation communication
phraseology. The list includes: technical words e.g. taxiway, proper noun classifications e.g.
Aviation radiotelephony
Air traffic control
aircraft type, number classifications e.g. headings, acronyms e.g. FOD (Foreign Object Debris)
and multiword units e.g. lineup and wait. Evaluation of the list shows that it is a promising
training tool. The article discusses how the TARTVL can be used by English for specific
purposes (ESP) and content instructors to provide aviation radiotelephony language
training for ab initio, first language and non-native English speaking aviation personnel.
Such training could help reduce miscommunication in multilingual workplaces, thus
enhancing safety in aviation.
Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The language of aviation radiotelephony (two-way radio communication) is generally agreed to be composed of standard
phraseology and plain language. Standard phraseology does not carry the same meaning as it does in linguistics and applied
linguistics. In aviation, standard phraseology is determined by the United Nations body, the International Civil Aviation
Organisation (ICAO). Standard phraseology is adopted by ICAO member states for use by pilots, vehicle drivers and air traffic
controllers (ICAO, 2016a). This paper focuses on standard phraseology since there is confusion around its role in radiotele-
phony communication (Drayton & Coxhead, 2022) and there can be serious consequences if it is used incorrectly. For example,
it was a factor in accidents such as the 1977 Tenerife disaster that killed 583 people (ALPA, n. d.; Cookson, 2009), and the 1990
Avianca Flight 052 crash at Cove Neck (Estival & Farris, 2016) that caused 73 deaths. Radiotelephony communication training
is essential to ensure safe skies.
Technical vocabulary lists provide a useful tool for such training. While the literature surrounding standard phraseology is
extensive, a technical vocabulary lens has not been applied to this field. This paper presents the development and evaluation
of the Tower Aviation Radiotelephony Technical Vocabulary List (TARTVL), and demonstrates its use to meet aviation
personnel training needs.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: averil.coxhead@vuw.ac.nz (A. Coxhead).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2022.10.001
0889-4906/Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
52 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

1.1. Scope and definitions

In this paper, we examine standard phraseology for tower control only, since that was the focus of the larger study this
paper comes from. Standard phraseology here is used for aircraft moving around, arriving at, and departing from an airport. In
order to define ICAO standard phraseology, we extend the definition provided by Prinzo et al. (2010):
[Standard phraseology is the] words, phrases, and clauses used to deliver clearance items, requests for information,
issue reports, etc. and the order in which these communication elements appear in the transmission (p. viii).
In the present study, ICAO standard phraseology is the exemplar words, phrases and clauses contained in two ICAO
documents: ICAO Document 9432 Manual of Radiotelephony (ICAO, 2007) and ICAO Document 4444 Procedures for Air Navi-
gation Services: Air Traffic Management (ICAO, 2016b), hereon referred to as Document 9432 and Document 4444. A third
document, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) CAAP 69 UAE Radiotelephony Standards document (GCAA, 2018)
(CAAP 69) is included because the United Arab Emirates is a member state that has adopted ICAO standards and is the context
for this research. CAAP 69 is substantively the same as Document 9432, but with local variations such as callsigns e.g. Pakistan
222 instead of e.g. Fastair 345 and phrases such as follow the greens that instructs a pilot to follow a series of green lights that
leads to the runway (GCAA, 2018). Variations do not replace existing ICAO standard phraseology but may be added for specific
local circumstances. Explanations that outline the standard operating procedures for which ICAO standard phraseology is
used (see Appendix A) are excluded. Technical vocabulary is part of standard phraseology and is the focus of this paper.
Technical vocabulary has been defined in a variety of ways in the literature. An initial definition provided by Coxhead
(2018) states that:
Technical vocabulary would be . limited in range to its specialized subject area or discipline and . be well known and
regularly used by professionals in that field. People outside the specialised field might have a limited knowledge of that
vocabulary, or might have never heard these technical items... In some cases, the meaning of a word might be vaguely
known by laypeople, but a specialist would be expected to know much more precise information about its meaning, use
and nuances (p. 22).
Technical vocabulary is made up of content words that convey technical meaning (Nation, 2013). It is usually identified as
word-types because only one or two members of a word family may be technical (Chung & Nation, 2004; Coxhead, 2018; Ha &
Hyland, 2017), e.g. cleared is used in aviation, but not other family members such as clearing or clears. Technical vocabulary
often cannot be replaced by synonyms (Coxhead, 2018). It may include purely technical words that are found only in a
particular field (Fraser, 2009) as well as high frequency words in general English that also have a technical meaning (cryp-
totechnical) (Fraser, 2009) e.g. land, extend or few in aviation. Some may be used in one or more technical sense(s) and in their
general sense (Fraser, 2009; Ha & Hyland, 2017). Technical vocabulary can include: proper nouns in medicine and history for
example (Coxhead, 2018), and in trades such as carpentry (Coxhead et al., 2020); acronyms (Coxhead et al., 2020) such as FOD
(foreign object debris) in aviation (Skybrary, 2019); and multiword units (MWUs) or phrases ‘made up of words that frequently
occur together’ (Nation, 2016, p. 71) including two-word collocations and three or more word bundles (Coxhead, 2018) e.g.
say again and cleared to land in aviation. MWUs are important to learners’ discipline knowledge and success (Ward, 2007) This
study includes all these kinds of technical items.

1.2. Standard phraseology in aviation radiotelephony communication

The purpose of standard phraseology in aviation is global standardisation of language to ensure all users can be under-
stood through clear, concise and unambiguous communication (ICAO, 2007, 2010; 2016a; 2016b). Table 1 provides an
example of a typical radiotelephony exchange taken from CAAP 69 (see also Appendix A). Each series of phrases relates to a
standard operating procedure for routine situations (ICAO, 2007; Howard, 2008; Mitsutomi & O’Brien, 2003). Table 1 relates
to taxi instructions.

Table 1
Extract of a pilot controller exchange (GCAA. 2018. p. 3 capitals in original).

Turn and Speaker Transmission

1. Pilot GROUND PAKISTAN 222 REQUEST TAXI
2. Air Traffic Controller PAKISTAN 222 GIVE WAY TO BOEING 747 PASSING LEFT TO RIGHT TAXI TO HOLDING POINT RUNWAY 02
3. Pilot HOLDING POINT RUNWAY 02 GIVING WAY TO BOEING 747 PAKISTAN 222

Radiotelephony communication usually follows a communication loop (EUROCONTROL, 2006; Koble & Roh, 2013) to
provide a defence against communication errors (EUROCONTROL, 2006). Table 1 shows the communication is initiated in
Turn 1 when the pilot asks for taxi instructions to get to the runway. The communication loop begins with the controller
instruction (Turn 2 - taxi to holding point). The pilot listens, then reads back the instruction (the readback) in Turn 3 while the
controller listens to ensure the readback is correct (the hearback). To complete the loop, the controller would acknowledge the
 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66 53

correct readback or correct it, if there had been a mistake (Estival, 2016; EUROCONTROL, 2006; Koble & Roh, 2013). This final
step is not included in Table 1. The flight crew then executes the manoeuvre (Barshi & Farris, 2013; Howard, 2008).
Standard phraseology has restricted grammatical structures (Estival, 2016; Intemann, 2008; Moder, 2013). Future tense is
rare; the passive voice is used for confirmation of a completed action, e.g. brakes released (Intemann, 2008); and pronouns,
articles and determiners can be lacking (Intemann, 2008; Lopez et al., 2013). In Table 1, callsigns (ground, Pakistan 222) replace
I and you (ICAO, 2007, 2010; 2016a; 2016b); a or the is omitted in give way to Boeing 747. Imperatives rather than full sentences
or interrogatives (Intemann, 2008; Moder, 2013) are used e.g. taxi to holding point, request taxi (Table 1) and say request
(suggested by an anonymous reviewer). The pilot uses the continuous tense in giving way . to describe an ongoing action in
response to an imperative instruction, give way ..
Lexically, standard phraseology consists of a reduced set of vocabulary (Intemann, 2008; Moder, 2013). ICAO (2010) states
that it includes about 400 words, each with a single, precise meaning, but examples are not provided. However, such
statements imply that the language is small and relatively easy to learn. Some words avoid phonological similarity e.g. climb
as the antonym for descend (Intemann, 2008). Other words are semantically important e.g. the words heading, flight level and
speed must be used with the three digit numbers they apply to (ICAO, 2007; 2016b), since the numbers, used alone, can cause
confusion for pilots (Prinzo et al., 2010). Standard phraseology contains multiword units (MWUs) that have a single precise
meaning (Bieswanger, 2016) which is created when the words occur together (Nation, 2016), e.g. requesting low pass (ICAO,
2010). MWUs encompass numerous two-word collocations, e.g. holding point (Bratani c & Anic, 2010) and these may include
numbers, e.g. runway 02 in Table 1 that tells the pilot the assigned runway for take-off.

1.3. Radiotelephony training needs in aviation

Standard phraseology miscommunication is connected to a speaker’s language background. Native English speakers (NES)
might use general English where standard phraseology would be clearer (e.g. Bieswanger, 2013; Howard, 2008; Kim & Elder,
2009). Varantola (1989) suggests that L1 interference may be the reason NES fall back on colloquial and idiomatic language.
Non-native English speakers (NNES) may also struggle with miscommunication. Kim (2018) examined a 17-min exchange
between a Russian pilot with lower English proficiency but excellent technical knowledge and a Korean controller with strong
general English proficiency. The controller used general English when standard phraseology would have resulted in a clearer
and more efficient message and did not accommodate to the pilot’s lower proficiency. Training is required for NES aviation
personnel to use more standard phraseology in non-routine situations such as emergencies and unusual events (Clark, 2017;
Kim & Elder, 2009) and this need is not limited to NES. However, it is unclear what greater use of standard phraseology looks
like or how such training could be achieved.
Dividing radiotelephony communication into standard phraseology and plain language is also problematic. Standard
phraseology is clearly defined (Trippe & Baese-Berk, 2019) at least in terms of what language matches a particular standard
operating procedure (Mitsutomi & O’Brien, 2003). Plain language is neither well defined nor understood (Trippe & Baese-
Berk, 2019), even after significant attention in the literature (see e.g. Estival & Farris, 2016; Intemann, 2008; Lopez et al.,
2013; Moder, 2013). Consequently, it is unclear where standard phraseology ends and plain language begins (Prado &
Tosqui-Lucks, 2019) especially in terms of what vocabulary should be counted in each category (Drayton, 2022). A better
understanding of the nature of standard phraseology is required for radiotelephony training in aviation (Tosqui-Lucks & Silva,
2020) to address differences in opinion by operational personnel around the role of standard phraseology in radiotelephony
communication (Drayton & Coxhead, 2022).
It is important to note that standard phraseology has not been written for all events that may occur in aviation (ICAO,
2016b), meaning there is a gap between what it provides and what is needed for successful radiotelephony communica-
tion. ICAO (2018) states that plain language must be used when standard phraseology ‘cannot serve an intended transmission’
(p 5.1). The implication here is that plain language can be used to fill the gap in standard phraseology, but the nature and
extent of the gap is not clear and may contribute to miscommunication. A technical vocabulary list can provide a tool to clarify
language use in radiotelephony communication and could be used for language training in aviation to help mitigate
miscommunication in the workplace. A list is a useful tool for identifying specialist language features (Basturkmen, 2010) and
corpus-based research is more or less the standard approach to list development (Nation, 2016).

1.4. Technical vocabulary and corpus analysis

Vocabulary is essential in language learning (Nation, 2013; Schmitt, 2010). Vocabulary lists can help identify the most
profitable language to learn (Nation, 2013). Students often struggle to learn specialised vocabulary and in many fields, it
remains the domain of content instructors who are not trained to provide an integrated language focus that would enable
greater success for students (Berman & Cheng, 2001; Durrant, 2014; Evans & Morrison, 2012). Technical pedagogical word
lists can provide assistance for students and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teachers, e.g. Jayakaran and Ng Yu’s (2012)
nursing word list and a series of technical word lists in plumbing, fabrication, carpentry and automotive technology
(Coxhead et al., 2020).
Aviation radiotelephony communication is predominantly spoken. Recent research suggests that spoken language con-
tains fewer technical lexical items than written. Coxhead et al. (2020) found that the 10.69% coverage of the Carpentry
54 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

Technical Word List over a spoken corpus is close to one quarter of the coverage of technical vocabulary in written carpentry
texts (38.35%) (Table 2). This means one word in ten is technical in spoken compared to two words in five in written.

Table 2
Coverage of technical trades vocabulary in written and spoken corpora (adapted from Author et al., 2020).

Technical Vocabulary List Spoken Corpus Written Corpus

Carpentry 10.69% 38.35%
Plumbing 11.59% 34.48%
Fabrication 9.18% 30.47%
Automotive 12.75% 37.44%

Vocabulary lists should be evaluated to establish their credibility. Nation (2016) provides an evaluation framework with
eight criteria: purpose, unit of counting, corpus, main word lists, other lists, making the lists, self-criticism and availability.
Each criteria includes questions that can be answered in relation to the list, e.g. under purpose the framework asks if the target
population for the list is clearly described, under main word lists it asks if content bearing proper nouns are distinguished.
This study aims to identify and categorise the technical vocabulary in a corpus of ICAO standard phraseology to create a
technical vocabulary list. It examines the coverage of the list overall and by category. The TARTVL is then applied to a spoken
text to identify what technical vocabulary is used and make suggestions for training. An evaluation of the list’s validity based
on Nation’s (2016) framework includes a comparison of coverage of the list over unrelated corpora.

1.5. Research questions

This study has three research questions:

1. What are the categories and coverage of technical vocabulary contained in the ICAO standard phraseology corpus?
2. What is the coverage of the TARTVL over academic written texts, fiction written texts, and spoken texts?
3. What does an evaluation of the TARTVL using Nation’s (2016) framework show?

2. Methodology

2.1. Compiling the ICAO standard phraseology corpus

Exemplars of spoken language from Document 9432 and CAAP 69 (GCAA, 2018; ICAO, 2007) including imaginary callsigns,
airports, navigation routes etc., e.g. G-CD JOIN DOWNWIND RUNWAY 24 WIND 270 DEGREES 5 KNOTS, QNH 1012 (ICAO,
2007, p. 4.11, capitals in original) were collected. The exemplars are industry standard, published for policy and training
purposes and mimic a spoken corpus. Exemplars from Chapter 12 of Document 4444 do not mimic spoken language and were
excluded. For example, in Document 4444, an exemplar is written as: JOIN . (position in circuit) (runway number) [SURFACE]
WIND (direction and speed) (units) . QNH . (number) . (ICAO, 2016b, p. 12.26, capitals and italics in original). The corpus
contains 4157 tokens and 400 types.
The principles used to develop the corpus are:

1. Exemplars of standard phraseology language were taken only from the chapters related to tower control (see Table 3):
2. All numbers and proper nouns were retained;
3. All possible options were included e.g., “right (or left, or nose) wheel appears up” (ICAO, 2007) which identifies three
possible sentences became:
Right wheel appears up
Left wheel appears up
Nose wheel appears up;
4. If ‘or’ was used between two possible options, it was removed, e.g.:
Runway 09 cleared to land for full stop G-CD
G-CD make another circuit report downwind;

Table 3
Chapters with exemplars relevant to tower air traffic control.

ICAO Doc 9432 GCAA CAAP 69

Chapter 2 General operating procedures; Chapter 3 General phraseology; Chapter 4 Chapter 2 General procedures and phraseology,
Aerodrome control aircraft; Chapter 5 Aerodrome control: vehicles; Chapter 9 Chapter 3 Aerodrome control, Chapter 7 Distress
Distress and urgency procedures and communications failure procedures; Chapter 10 and urgency, and Chapter 9 Vehicle
Transmission of meteorological and other aerodrome information; and relevant procedures and phraseology (GCAA, 2018).
sections of Chapter 11 Miscellaneous flight handling (ICAO, 2007).
 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66 55

5. Transmissions had to involve air traffic controllers, e.g. between a vehicle driver and a controller. Transmissions be-
tween a vehicle driver and pilot were excluded;
6. Transmissions related to approach or area control were excluded, e.g. descend to flight level two five zero.

2.2. Identifying technical vocabulary in the corpus

This section outlines the steps followed to identify technical vocabulary in the ICAO standard phraseology corpus. Range of
occurrence was not taken into account because one corpus was used. Frequency was used in a limited way (Section 2.2.2). The
Range program (Heatley et al., 2002) was used for coverage analysis.

2.2.1. Classifying and tagging proper nouns and numbers

Proper nouns and numbers are frequent in aviation communication and tagging was used for these. Here is an example of
a transmission:
Fastair 345 cleared to kennington, via A1 FL 280 wicken 3 delta departure, squawk 5501 (ICAO, 2007, p. 2.13).
Here is the tagged text:
(accallsign) cleared to (aerodest), via (sigpoint) flight level (flnumber) (standarddep) departure, squawk (ssrcode).
As a first step, the meaning of proper nouns and numbers was checked in Document 4444 and in consultation with two air
traffic instructors in the UAE. Twenty-eight classifications were created and tagged: 11 proper nouns and 17 numbers. Table 4
shows a transmission broken down into parts where each row is one part. Column two presents the meaning of proper nouns
and numbers found in Document 4444, with formatting from the original document. Substitutable items are italicised in
brackets, e.g. (aircraft callsign) and words in capital letters do not change e.g., CLEARED TO. Column three contains the tags,
e.g., FASTAIR 345 is an aircraft callsign (ICAO, 2007) and is replaced by the tag (ACCALLSIGN). Section 3.1 presents the
remaining tags.

Table 4
Establishing tags for proper nouns and numbers.

Phrase Appearance in ICAO (2016) Tag (IN BRACKETS)

FASTAIR 345 CLEARED TO (aircraft call sign) CLEARED TO (ICAO, 2016, p. 12.13) (ACCALLSIGN) CLEARED TO
KENNINGTON (aerodrome of destination) (ICAO, 2016, p. 12.21) (AERODEST)
VIA A1 VIA (route and/or significant points) (ICAO, 2016, p. 12.14) VIA (SIGPOINT)
FL 280 FLIGHT LEVEL (number) (ICAO, 2016, p. 12.13) FLIGHT LEVEL (FLNUMBER)
WICKEN 3 DELTA DEPARTURE (standard departure name and number) DEPARTURE (ICAO, 2016; P. 12.16) (STANDARDDEP) DEPARTURE
SQUAWK 5501 SQUAWKING (SSR code) (ICAO, 2016, p. 12.29) or SQUAWK (code or IDENT) SQUAWK (SSRCODE)
(p. 12.34) or SQUAWK (code) (p. 12.39)

2.2.2. Identifying technical words and acronyms in the corpus

This process involved categorizing all items in the corpus using Nation’s (2018) British National Corpus and Corpus of
Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA) frequency and supplementary (proper nouns, abbreviations and acronyms, and
marginal words such as um) word lists. Words and acronyms that did not appear in any of those lists were categorized into (1)
aviation-specific technical words such as taxiway and (2) aviation acronyms such as CAVOK (cloud and visibility OK). All other
items in the corpus which were not already in the frequency and supplementary lists were added, e.g. co-pilot and unser-
viceable were added to the pilot and service word families.
The next step was to identify technical aviation words from the corpus across the adapted BNC/COCA frequency and
supplementary lists using four principles. The first principle identified words with a specialised meaning according to two
sources. They were either defined in ICAO and national civil aviation documents, e.g., acknowledge and maintain are defined in
a List of Standard Words and Phrases in ICAO (2007). ICAO (2016b) gives a lengthy explanation of how behind should be used (p.
12.12); and in the UAE, to must never be used with numbers to avoid confusion with the number two (GCAA, 2018); or they
were defined in academic aviation English literature e.g., Estival and Farris’s (2016) explanation of require in radiotelephony
communication.
The second principle focused on semantically technical words that contribute to concision, or are morphologically or
phonologically easier to hear or understand on the radio in aviation. This process involved the first author who identified
most of the technical vocabulary first and checked with air traffic control colleagues to confirm technicality of unclear items.
For example, few is a precise measure of cloud cover; due is concise and used instead of because to give a reason; negative is
phonologically clearer over the radio than no and easily contrasted with affirm for yes. The first author is an ICAO qualified
senior course developer with over seven years of experience in training centres in the aviation industry including six years in
air traffic control education.
56 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

The third principle identified words that had a grammatical sense that is not used in general English, e.g. verbs that air traffic
controllers use in the imperative form (give way) which pilots respond to in the present continuous (giving way) in Table 1; or
own and discretion used in at own discretion (ICAO, 2007; 2016b) and maintain own (separation/navigation) (ICAO, 2016b).
The fourth principle identified words for further analysis based on frequency. Words that occur more than expected in a
corpus can be an indication of specialisation (Nation & Webb, 2011). Miller and Biber (2015) set the frequency at 20 occur-
rences per million words to make a word ‘important’. AntConc (Anthony, 2019) Concordancer was used to check words which
occurred ten times or more in the corpus. For example, ready occurred 11 times. It is used by pilots with a callsign to tell
controllers they are ready for the next instruction, e.g. Fastair345 ready. Similarly, abbreviations in the adapted BNC/COCA
supplementary abbreviations list were examined and added to the list. This included acronyms defined in a List of Commonly
Used Abbreviations (ICAO, 2007, p.1.4) e.g., ILS (Instrument Landing System) or confirmed by aviation personnel as technical, e.g.
QDM that means magnetic heading.

2.2.3. Identifying multiword units

Three principles were used to determine multiword units (MWUs) to develop the Aviation Multiword Units list. The first
principle identified MWUs that were specialised according to ICAO and national documents, e.g. say again is defined in the List
of Standard Words and Phrases (ICAO, 2007). The second principle identified high frequency function words that appeared ten
or more times in the corpus. For example, for appeared 46 times and concordance lines illustrated its use in cleared for take-off.
The third principle identified high frequency non-technical words that appeared at least ten times in the corpus. Concordance
analysis showed they appeared in MWUs such as touch and go and go around. More than 200 MWUs were found that were
entirely made up of technical vocabulary, e.g. report runway vacated. They are the subject of further research and beyond the
scope of the current paper.

2.3. Evaluating the tower aviation radiotelephony technical vocabulary list

In word list development, a common practice is to test the list over a similar corpus, however, such a corpus is not available
since examples of standard phraseology are rare (Lopez et al., 2013). Evaluation of the list first involved Nation’s (2016, p. 131–
132) ‘questions for critiquing a word list’ based on his evaluation framework (Research Question 2) and second the coverage of
the TARTVL over three unrelated corpora using Heatley et al.’s (2002) Range programme (Research Question 3). A corpus of
written fiction and another of written academic texts (approximately 3.5 million words each) from Coxhead’s (2000) vali-
dation of the Academic Word List were used. The Wellington Spoken English Corpus (Holmes et al., 1998) provided a com-
parison to spoken language and was chosen because it is not aviation based and contains a variety of spoken language
including a large amount of informal speech (75%; 50% of which is private conversations) and roughly equal proportions of
formal (12% e.g., parliamentary debate) and semi-formal speech (13% e.g., public and private interviews).

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Categories and coverage of technical vocabulary in the ICAO standard phraseology corpus

Table 5 shows the 274 technical vocabulary items in the Technical Aviation Radiotelephony Technical Vocabulary List
(TARTVL), include: 219 word types, 17 number classifications, 16 multiword units, 11 proper noun classifications and 11 ac-
ronyms. The TARTVL covers 88.89% of the standard phraseology corpus. That is, almost nine out of ten items in the corpus are
technical, which is approximately eight to nine times the coverage of the technical vocabulary in the spoken trades’ education
corpora from Coxhead et al. (2020) and more than double the coverage in the written corpora in Table 2. Such high coverage is
unsurprising for several reasons. The first is that ICAO standard phraseology is utilitarian (Skalicky et al., 2015) and about
aviation, rather than about other topics of conversation. Secondly, spoken academic English corpus studies (e.g., Dang et al.,
2017, 2020) provide other examples of high coverage by specialized word lists, largely driven by high frequency vocabulary in
the lists and in general spoken academic English. It is difficult to compare coverage of this utilitarian aviation language with
examples from other specialized corpora. Corpora made up of classroom discourse, for example, includes high frequency
vocabulary and ranges from classroom management through to talking about reading texts (Horst, 2010; Coxhead et al.,
2020). This variety of topic and lexis could be why the coverage of the TARTVL is approximately eight to nine times the

Table 5
Technical vocabulary in ICAO standard phraseology corpus.

Aviation technical vocabulary lists Tokens/% Types/%

Technical words 2039/51.44 219/54.61
Numbers 481/12.13 17/4.24
Multiword units 127/3.20 16/3.99
Proper nouns 787/19.85 11/2.74
Acronyms 90/2.27 11/2.74
Total technical vocabulary 3524/88.89 274/68.32
 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66 57

coverage of technical word lists over spoken trades’ education corpora and more than double the coverage over the written
trades’ education corpora (Coxhead et al., 2020) (Table 2).
Each of the five categories of technical vocabulary from the TARTVL are now presented in turn, from the largest to smallest
coverage of the corpus. The 219 technical word types make up 51.44% of the corpus (Table 5). Table 6 shows the 20 highest
frequency types that occurred ten or more times (Appendix B contains a further 37 words). Runway is the most frequent word,
as we might expect. The final column in Table 6 shows that 12 of the 20 words (and 29 of the 37 words in Appendix B) are in the
1st and 2nd 1000 word lists of Nation’s (2018) BNC/COCA lists. High frequency words such as tower, traffic and hold could give
learners the false impression that the words are known when the technical sense(s) is/are not known (Coxhead et al., 2020).

Table 6
Twenty highest frequency technical words.

Rank Type Frequency BNC/COCA Word List

1 runway 193 5th
2 to 98 1st
3 request 54 3rd
4 tower 54 2nd
5 via 49 3rd
6 feet 48 1st
7 right 45 1st
8 report 40 1st
9 roger 36 Proper noun list
10 holding 33 1st
11 degrees 31 1st
12 wind 31 1st
13 knots 30 4th
14 taxiway 30 Not in list
15 ground 29 1st
16 final 27 1st
17 short 27 1st
18 vacated 27 8th
19 left 26 1st
20 downwind 25 compound word

The technical words in the TARTVL have a number of distinctive qualities. First, technical words can have both a technical
meaning(s) and a non-technical meaning(s) (e.g. ready and to) as Fraser (2009) found in pharmacology. This finding appears to
contrast with ICAO’s (2010) assertion that words in standard phraseology have a single and precise meaning. Some TARTVL
items have more than one technical meaning, e.g. approach, apron and tower. Approach is a type of controller and part of the
final flightpath for aircraft approaching the runway. A pilot can be told to contact approach or request a straight-in approach.
There are also purely technical items (Fraser, 2009), such as taxiway or air-taxi, which have one meaning.
The TARTVL includes about 40 words that are technical for non-semantic reasons, such as particular grammatical prop-
erties, e.g. verbs that are used differently to their use in general English, or words that have safety and legal implications e.g.,
the word take-off must only be used when it is safe for an aircraft to depart or when cancelling a take-off (ICAO, 2016). Finally,
they may be phonologically easier to hear e.g., affirm for yes; or contribute to concision e.g., due (ICAO, 2007). Specialist
knowledge is required for the use of these words even when they are semantically similar to general English.
Technical proper nouns in eleven classifications cover 19.85% of the corpus (Table 5). Table 7 lists all the proper noun tags
in order of frequency with their meaning. Three of the most frequent items are callsigns (accallsign, uncallsign, vecallsign)
because all exemplar phrases or sentences contain them. Aviation alphabet letters (avalphabet) occur 84 times in the corpus,
followed by type of aircraft (actype), navigation points (sigpoint and desplace), destination, airline, standard routes and

Table 7
Proper noun tags, meaning and frequency.

Tag Meaning Frequency

ACCALLSIGN Aircraft callsign e.g. Fastair 345 462
AVALPHABET Aviation alphabet letters 84
UNCALLSIGN Name of air traffic control unit, usually combines with controller designation e.g. uncallsign tower 81
VECALLSIGN Callsign for vehicles operating at an airport 63
ACTYPE Aircraft type 55
SIGPOINT Significant point used for navigation e.g. A1 20
DESPLACE Places which are part of a clearance, position report or emergency report and can be found on an aeronautical 8
chart (Estival, 2016)
AERODEST Destination aerodrome or airport 5
CONAME Airline company name e.g. Emirates 5
SPROUTE A name number or code combined with the word Route e.g. Route Echo 2
STANDARDDEP A standard departure procedure e.g. Wicken 3 Delta (Departure) 2
58 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

departures (aerodest, coname, sproute and standarddep). Each tag in Table 7 represents a group of proper nouns. The aviation
alphabet tag AVALPHABET includes the twenty-six letters of the aviation alphabet, e.g. Mike (M) and November (N) (see
Appendix C). These letters identify taxiways, callsigns, navigation points and routes. An example of alphabetic polysemy is the
letters L and R that are coupled with runway numbers. They designate parallel runways e.g. runway 07L and runway 07R that
are said aloud as runway zero seven left and runway zero seven right.
Aircraft types (ACTYPE) can differ from airport to airport, so the items in this classification will also differ according to local
conditions. ACTYPE is an example of how proper noun tags represent several items (Table 8).

Table 8
Aircraft types covered by the tag ACTYPE.

ACTYPE
Boeing 737 B747 B757
Boeing 747 B737 C172
Boeing 767 Learjet Cherokee
Boeing 777 Seneca Airbus A320

The 17 number classifications comprise 12.13% of the corpus (Table 5) and appear in a variety of formats such as four-digit
numbers for a transponder code (SSRCODE), e.g. 2400 or with a decimal point for radio frequencies (NUMFREQ), e.g. 129.1.
Sixteen number types occurred three or more times (Table 9). The most frequent is runway designator/number (RWYDES).
The number of items associated with a tag such as RWYDES varies, e.g. a single runway at an airport has two runway numbers
such as runway 13 and runway 31, or a larger airport (such as Chicago O’Hare) could have eight runways and therefore 16
runway numbers (and letters as described above).

Table 9
Number tags in the corpus.

Tag Meaning Frequency

RWYDES Direction of runway e.g. 27 in Runway 27 160
NNUMBER Number in its plain language sense e.g. Gate 7 becomes Gate nnumber 52
QNUMBER Air pressure required for accurate height or altitude readings (Estival, 2016). QNH number e.g. QNH 1003 49
becomes QNH Qnumber
ALTNUMBER 3 - 5 digit number that gives altitude in feet 47
DISTNUMBER A number combined with a unit of measurement e.g. with cm, km, miles 29
WINUMBER Wind direction in degrees e.g. 270, 070 29
WISPEED Speed of wind in knots e.g. 7, 25 29
NUMFREQ Radio frequency e.g. 129.1 21
POSQUEUE Position in a queue of aircraft on the ground or in the air e.g. number 2 follow Cherokee 19
TIMEMIN Time given as the minutes only e.g. 45, two three and a half 12
HDGNUMBER Direction an aircraft flies towards, in degrees e.g. 160, 290, 080 11
SSRCODE Four-digit transponder code (ICAO, 2007) used to identify an aircraft on radar e.g. 5501, 2400 6
FLNUMBER Three-digit number for flight level of an aircraft e.g. 80, 200 5
READNUMBER A number from 1 to 5 on a scale of readability i.e. how well the receiver can hear the speaker 4
TIMEHOUR Time given as 24 h time e.g. 0715 and a half 4
TENUMBER Temperature in degrees e.g. minus 3, 27 3
DPNUMBER Dewpoint number in degrees e.g. 10, minus 2 1

Numbers in aviation can be polysemous. Two examples are the tags WINUMBER (wind direction) and HDGNUMBER
(heading) that have a frequency of 29 and 11 respectively (Table 10). Note that 190, 270 and 360 appear in both the wind
direction and heading lists. Numbers are an essential element of aviation vocabulary.

Table 10
Numbers for the tags HDGNUMBER and WINUMBER.

HDGNUMBER WINUMBER
090 080
160 190
190 250
270 260
280 270
360 290
360

In Table 11, we see that the most common multiword unit (MWU) was cleared for take-off. The MWUs in Table 11 (see the
final column) mostly contain words from Nation’s (2018) 1st 1000 BNC/COCA list, meaning they are likely to be familiar to
learners of radiotelephony language even if specialist meanings are unknown. Touch and go has a specific meaning in aviation
 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66 59

with no relationship to its idiomatic use in general English. The same is true for line up, line up and wait, full stop and straight
ahead. The MWUs in Table 11 are not polysemous.

Table 11
Technical aviation multiword units.

Rank Multiword Unit Frequency BNC/COCA 1000 Word List

1 Cleared for take-off 24 1st, 1st, NIL
2 In sight 18 1st, 1st
3 Cleared to land 16 1st, 1st, 1st
4 Start up 15 compound word
5 Line up 9 compound word
6 Touch and go 8 1st, 1st, 1st
7 I say again 6 1st, 1st, 1st
8 Line up and wait 6 compound word, 1st, 1st
9 Full stop 4 1st, 1st
10 Give way 4 1st, 1st
11 Giving way 4 1st, 1st
12 Going around 4 1st, 1st
13 Straight ahead 4 1st, 1st
14 Flight plan 2 2nd, 1st
15 Go around 2 1st, 1st
16 Say again 1 1st, 1st

The 11 technical acronyms cover 2.27% of the tokens in the corpus (Table 5). Table 12 provides a list of these acronyms e.g.
WILCO (will comply) and VFR (visual flight rules).

Table 12
Acronyms and frequency.

Type Frequency
QNH 49
WILCO 19
VFR 7
IFR 4
RVR 3
POB 2
QDM 2
ATIS 1
CAVOK 1
ILS 1
VASIS 1

An extract of spoken aviation radiotelephony communication taken from ICAO (2010) has TARTVL items in bold (Figure 1).
This extract is a non-routine situation (ICAO, 2010), meaning that standard phraseology has not been written for this event.
Roger is a technical word that means ‘I have received all of your last transmission’ (ICAO, 2007, p. 2.7), not a proper noun. The
extract contains 96 words, of which 39 or 40.63% are technical. We counted we’ll and I’m as single words in our calculation.
The amount of technical vocabulary used is significantly lower than that contained in ICAO standard phraseology and this
could be attributed to the fact that this is a non-routine situation. Regardless, the coverage figure is much higher than the
technical vocabulary coverage in the trades’ spoken corpora in Coxhead et al. (2020). Here, two words in five are aviation
technical words which is similar to the written trades’ corpora. The extract contains a callsign (UD), a runway number (29),
MWUs e.g. go around and low pass that were identified in the TARTVL as well as others that are composed of technical vo-
cabulary including: runway 29, main landing gear, nose gear and gear down. What is clear is that technical vocabulary in the
TARTVL is needed for communication, even though standard phraseology is not written for this event.
Three words in the extract do not appear in our corpus (unable, intentions and release) so we checked whether they met the
selection principles for the list. Unable is defined in ICAO (2007, p. 2.8). Intentions appears in Document 4444 as say intentions
and advise intentions and its use is not grammatically typical. We added unable and intentions to the technical word list.
Release appears in Document 4444 in relation to releasing brakes in interactions between ground crew and air crew rather
than in communication with air traffic controllers, so it was not added to the list.

3.2. Evaluation of the TARTVL

Research Question two focused on the coverage of the TARTVL (excluding proper nouns, numbers, acronyms or MWUs
since these did not appear in the comparison corpora) over the academic written corpus (4.84%), the fiction corpus (5.3%) and
the spoken corpus (3.38%). These figures are significantly lower than the 88.89% coverage over the ICAO standard phraseology
corpus and because of the presence of high frequency words found in the 1st and 2nd 1000 words of Nation’s BNC/COCA lists
60 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

such as to, up, time, make and right. That said, the consistently low coverage across these three corpora confirms that ICAO
standard phraseology is unlike written academic, written fiction or spoken general English.
The second part of the evaluation (Research Question three) is based on Nation’s (2016) framework (Table 13). The list was
originally developed as a tool for teaching NNES ab initio air traffic controllers in the UAE, however it could apply to a wider
context including more experienced or NES as Section 5 shows. This wider purpose has been added to Table 13.

Table 13
Specifications for the TARTVL.

Focus Description of the List

Purpose Technical vocabulary of aviation radiotelephony communication; ab initio air traffic controllers; non-native and native
English speakers
Unit of counting Types
Corpus Spoken exemplars of ICAO standard phraseology in written documents Document 9432 and CAAP 69
Main word list Technical aviation word list
Other word lists Proper noun classifications; number classifications; acronyms; multiword units
Making the list Checking aviation technical documents and academic literature; word frequency; concordance analysis; checking by
industry experts; homonyms not dealt with
Function words Not included in the list
Possible criticisms Small corpus size; no replication of the word list for validation; insufficient range of materials included in the corpus;
requires further research

The evaluation process raised issues with the corpus. Not all the technical vocabulary required for radiotelephony
communication is contained in the TARTVL. Other sources for technical vocabulary such as ICAO documents, training material
and spoken radiotelephony communication were not examined. The technical vocabulary that Document 4444 alludes to was
not established. For example, in Document 4444 cloud cover is written as: CLOUD (amount, .). Our corpus includes the word
few, but other words such as scattered and broken are also precise measures of cloud cover and these words are contained in
aviation training material for ab initio personnel. Annex 1 includes the word balloon (ICAO, 2018) that was a source of
miscommunication in Prado (2021). Spoken radiotelephony communication also contains technical vocabulary, e.g., the word
close was used in Drayton’s (2021) spoken simulator corpus and is an example of American phraseology that replaces circuit in
ICAO standard phraseology (Boschen & Jones, 2004, pp. 291–299). Function words were not included in the list, but Trippe
and Baese-Berk (2019) explain how they are essential to remove ambiguity in phrases such as south of the marker and to
the outer marker (p. 32). Using word types as a unit for counting was appropriate to this context because usually only one or
two members of a word family were found in the corpus.
The remainder of the evaluation focussed on the principles and methodology for identification and inclusion of words.
Homoforms, such as approach and tower appear as single words with undifferentiated uses. Hyphenated words were stand-
ardised, for example takeoff was changed to take-off. Compound words such as standby were retained in their original form.

4. Limitations

Limitations that arose through the evaluation exercise based on Nation (2016) have already been discussed. Limitations in
the overall study include the decision to limit the corpus to standard phraseology exemplars which resulted in a very small
corpus of 400 types. However, useful insights can be gained from corpora as small as the one used here (Basturkmen, 2010;
Gavioli, 2005) and this work provides a base on which to build (see Sections 5.0 and 6.0). What is clear from this study is that a
wider array of source material is required, not only to build a larger corpus, but to identify the true extent of technical vo-
cabulary required for aviation radiotelephony communication training.
The use of tags reduced the complexity of the language. First, each tag (e.g. ACTYPE or WINUMBER) is a classification that
represents a number of items. Second, the aircraft callsign tag did not distinguish shortened callsigns from full callsigns, a
feature that was captured in the work of Delpech et al. (2018).

5. Implications

The TARTVL provides a useful tool for language training by highlighting categories of technical vocabulary. Examples of
what instructors can do to focus on categories of technical words in the TARTVL are presented in Table 14 along with actions
that could be taken by learners themselves and content and ESP instructors to help develop that knowledge.
Technical vocabulary lists need to be carefully managed because it is tempting to memorise items as a method of learning.
There are more strategic ways to use vocabulary lists. Teaching should not move alphabetically through the list. It needs to be
carefully planned and embedded into the classroom so that learners are exposed to the meanings of the vocabulary often, that
they hear the items, and have the opportunity to use them in their own speaking. Vocabulary lists can also be used to find out
how much learners might know of the vocabulary simply by asking learners to identify words they know. To check how well
learners know the vocabulary, learners could be asked to provide meanings. Such information might be useful at the start of a
language training programme.
 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66 61

Table 14
Knowledge of technical vocabulary needed by NNES aviation personnel and suggestions for learning and teaching.

What technical vocabulary knowledge do ab
initio L2 aviation personnel need?
Highly technical words in the TARTVL that are
unique to aviation radiotelephony e.g.
taxiway.
Words in the TARTVL that are used in aviation
radiotelephony with a particular meaning
not frequently encountered in everyday
usage e.g. approach.
Words in the TARTVL that are used in aviation
radiotelephony but with the same meaning
most frequently encountered in everyday
usage e.g. due, continue
What can learners and teachers do?
Undertake direct learning through word cards. Use repetition to ensure there are plenty of
encounters. Make sure that these words are recognised in spoken form and used fluently in
speaking.
Use strategies such as word cards, seeking exposure to these words in the aviation community, for
example, by observing air traffic controllers or watching aviation videos online, and talking about
aviation. Reading aviation magazine articles and websites could also be useful.
Identify common patterns of use in aviation that are different from general English. Ensure
opportunities to encounter these words in aviation contexts through watching aviation videos
online on Youtube including channels such as VASAviation, observations of real-life air traffic
management and use of simulation websites such as VatSim and ATCsim (https://www.vatsim.net/,
https://atc-sim.com/) that allow students to practise using radiotelephony language.

Radiotelephony communication training needs to be a collaborative process between language and content instructors.
The highly safety critical nature of this communication means that the information trainees receive must be technically
correct, but the complexity of interactions mean trainees would also benefit from language focussed instruction. The TARTVL
provides a useful tool around which to structure collaboration. For content instructors, the TARTVL helps to identify vo-
cabulary that students may struggle to understand because it is new to them or differs from its use in general English. This
research also implies that ESP instructors in a safety critical environment, such as aviation, need to be willing to embrace the
technical vocabulary of their field. Previous research suggests that ESP instructors should teach vocabulary that has a dual
general and technical sense (Mudraya, 2006) but, given that technical vocabulary conveys essential meaning in situations like
the example in Section 3.1, this focus may not be enough. ESP teachers need to understand the use of proper nouns and
numbers in aviation e.g., callsigns and runway numbers; how technical vocabulary is combined to create MWUs; as well as
the technical words and acronyms used in aviation. These items need to be taken into account when creating a curriculum.
The TARTVL can also be used to address NES training needs by examining colloquial language use. In Figure 1, language
such as you will let me know and if you wish you may come for could be replaced with technical vocabulary. In this case, say/
request (intentions) and cleared for (low pass) would result in more standardised and concise language use. This kind of
training addresses the need for NES to use more standard phraseology in order to reduce miscommunication (Clark, 2017;
Kim & Elder, 2009), especially in multilingual workplaces (Drayton & Coxhead, 2022; Trippe & Baese-Berk, 2019). Thus, the
TARTVL clarifies how more standard phraseology can be used in communication.

Figure 1. Extract of radiotelephony communication with technical vocabulary in Bold.

Finally, the highly technical nature of aviation radiotelephony communication has implications for language testing in
aviation. Much of the meaning required for successful communication is conveyed through technical vocabulary. Further, this
study shows that plain language would not be sufficient to cover the technical vocabulary gap left by standard phraseology.
62 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

All users must understand the technical vocabulary contained in aviation training materials. Therefore, language proficiency
in general English alone is insufficient for successful radiotelephony communication (Kim, 2018; Moder & Halleck, 2009;
Trippe, 2018). The ICAO language proficiency requirements that underpin aviation language testing have been criticized
because they focus on general English rather than the radiotelephony communication encountered in aviation workplaces
(Farris, 2016; Kim, 2018; Kim & Elder, 2009). Further, native English speakers can contribute to miscommunication when they
use non-standard language, yet they do not need to undergo a language test (ICAO, 2018). The TARTVL provides a tool for
identifying technical language requirements of aviation personnel for assessment.

6. Future research

To address the limitations highlighted in the evaluation of the TARTVL conducted here, the list should be compared to a
larger aviation corpus which could include training material, ICAO documentation and spoken texts. This research may
confirm, or not, the findings of the present study and identify further vocabulary required for radiotelephony communication
which could help address the gap in vocabulary created by the lack of clarity around the scope and composition of standard
phraseology and plain language. Any extension to the list needs to be done in a principled way. A replication study of the list
according to the principles identified by Miller and Biber (2015) would also be useful.
MWUs is another avenue for research. The TARTVL includes a handful only, but preliminary work suggests that there are
many more. They could be a substantial element of radiotelephony communication and their identification would add to our
understanding. For example, the word to is used in its general sense, from (location) to (location) and in its technical sense in
MWUs such as climb to flight level .. Such variation was not established in this study.
The levels of technicality of individual words and MWUs in the TARTVL could be categorized according to Ha and Hyland’s
(2017) Technicality Analysis Model (TAM) which grades technical language according to five levels from least technical to most
technical. Establishing the frequency of technical vocabulary from high to low through examination of a large scale spoken
corpus would guide decisions on approaches to lower frequency items.
The TARTVL could be used to examine spoken language use in routine situations where a technical vocabulary lens could
shed light on the way aviation personnel communicate. Some of the controllers in Drayton and Coxhead (2022) stated that they
frequently adapt standard phraseology to meet their needs in tower air traffic control because there are numerous situations for
which standard phraseology is insufficient. This aspect of routine communication has not been investigated, although Rees
(2013) notes that plain language is often required in everyday situations. Where communication is a factor in an accident or
incident, a technical vocabulary lens could clarify how language use contributed to a communication breakdown. Such an
analysis might also highlight the effect of contradictory beliefs about standard phraseology identified by Drayton and Coxhead
(2022). The spoken corpus could also be examined for further technical vocabulary and language categories including function
words that are used to reduce ambiguity. Comparisons between spoken corpora from different countries could be examined to
identify differences in language use by aviation personnel e.g. between the US that does not adhere to ICAO conventions for
standard phraseology and the UAE that does. Finally, technical vocabulary lists could also be developed for approach air traffic
control (which sequences all arriving and departing aircraft before they get to tower control airspace) and area air traffic control
(which deals with all aircraft that are passing through an airspace and not using local airports).

7. Conclusion

International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standard phraseology is an integral element of radiotelephony commu-
nication between air traffic controllers, and pilots or vehicle drivers. This study identified the technical vocabulary in a corpus
of ICAO standard phraseology to create the Tower Aviation Radiotelephony Technical Vocabulary List (TARTVL). The list
contains technical words, proper nouns, numbers, multiword units and acronyms that cover 88.98% of the standard phra-
seology corpus. Technical words and numbers can be polysemous or have a single technical meaning. Words can also be
technical for non-semantic reasons such as a peculiar grammatical use or because they are easier to hear on the radio. A small
overlap of 3.38%–5.3%, between the TARTVL and other unrelated corpora occurs because there is a significant number of high
frequency words that are technical in aviation, but ICAO standard phraseology is otherwise unlike other written and spoken
forms of English language. The TARTVL can be used to examine real-life radiotelephony communication for training of ab
initio and experienced aviation personnel from both native and non-native English speaking backgrounds. Such training
could help to reduce miscommunication in multilingual workplaces, clarify the amount and categories of technical single
items and multiword units in aviation communication, and ultimately (and hopefully) increase safety in the skies.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Conflict of interest

None
 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66 63

Acknowledgements

Jenny Drayton would like to thank Andy West and Pete McCrostie who gave professional feedback and advice on an earlier
version of this manuscript. Also, Bengt Hallberg, Jesse Guillen, Chris Carmody and Mike Barry for their answers to my many
questions related to the larger project from which this paper is taken. Thank you to all my air traffic control colleagues who
have answered numerous aviation language related questions over the years.

Appendices

Appendix A
Page taken from ICAO Document 9432. The language used in the corpus is the exemplars contained in the boxes.
64 J. Drayton, A. Coxhead / English for Specific Purposes 69 (2023) 51–66

Appendix B

Aviation alphabet letters represented by the tag AVALPHABET.

AVALPHABET
Alpha Juliet Sierra
Bravo Kilo Tango
Charlie Lima Uniform
Delta Mike Victor
Echo November Whisky
Foxtrot Oscar Xray
Golf Papa Yankee
Hotel Quebec Zulu
India Romeo

Appendix C

Technical words occurring 10 or more times.

Rank Word Frequency BNCCOCA Word List
21 Cleared 24 1
22 Stand 24 1
23 Taxi 23 2
24 Approach 22 2
25 Mayday 22 14
26 Landing 21 1
27 Traffic 21 2
28 Number 19 1
29 Pan 18 2
30 Point 18 1
31 Hold 17 1
32 Cross 16 1
33 Below 15 1
34 Miles 15 1
35 Proceed 15 3
36 Behind 14 1
37 Caution 14 4
38 Approved 13 3
39 Control 13 1
40 Departure 13 4
41 Up 13 1
42 Due 12 2
43 Join 12 1
44 Position 12 1
45 Take-off 12 compound word
46 Wheel 12 1
47 Continue 11 1
48 Gate 11 2
49 Immediately 11 2
50 Information 11 1
51 Ready 11 1
52 Stop 11 1
53 Hand 10 1
54 Heading 10 1
55 Low 10 1
56 Turn 10 1
57 Vacate 10 8
58 Zone 10 3

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Jenny Drayton has worked in the aviation sector as an English language specialist and course developer for over nine years. She created courses for air traffic
controllers that relate to Human Factors, safety, and incident investigation. Her Master’s thesis examined the language air traffic controllers use in
emergencies.

Professor Averil Coxhead teaches undergraduate and postgraduate TESOL and Applied Linguistics courses in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language
Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her current research includes single and multiword technical vocabulary in trades education, testing
vocabulary knowledge, and teachers’ approaches to lexis.