空中雙語

弗朗索瓦·格羅讓

There are some 100，000 commercial flights each day in the world， which means that literally millions of interactions take place between pilots and air traffic controllers， very often in a foreign language since English is the international language of civil aviation. This entails a special form of bilingualism as it is very domain-specific and has to be optimal at all times. How does it take place？ How efficient is it？ Are there breakdowns and if so， what are they due to？ What still needs to be improved？

Dr. Judith Bürki-Cohen， formerly a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Transportations Office of the Secretary， Research and Technology， has worked extensively on these questions.

Grosjean： What percentage of communication between pilots and air traffic controllers involves English as a foreign language for one or both parties， would you say？

Cohen： In non-English speaking countries， near 100 percent， because few air traffic controllers and only some pilots are native speakers of English. In countries where English is the official language， it will depend on the percentage of international flights or international student pilots. This will vary according to region.

Grosjean： Who is responsible for making sure that both air traffic controllers and pilots are sufficiently proficient to talk to one another in English？

Cohen： The civil aviation authorities in each country， which are affiliated with the International Civil Aviation Organization （ICAO）. For all pilots and air traffic controllers， it requires proficiency in aviation phraseology1. Since March 2011， ICAO also requires general English language proficiency2 for pilots and controllers flying internationally or interacting with international flights.

Grosjean： Is English always respected or do pilots and controllers who share the same language， e.g. a German pilot speaking to a German controller， slip into their native language？

Cohen： Well， they really shouldnt. One important reason is the so-called party line3， i.e. a source of information for pilots and for air traffic controllers. The airspace is divided into sectors that communicate on the same radar frequency. As a pilot， I can increase my situation awareness4 by listening to who else is on the same frequency. This tells me who is near me and whether they encounter any weather that I should know about. I may even catch an air traffic controllers mistake， such as clearing5 me for the same runway as another airplane.

Pilots and controllers speaking in languages other than English deprive non-English speaking pilots flying in the same airspace of the information in the party line， and they thus diminish their situation awareness.

Grosjean： Flying is one of the safest ways of traveling so communication in English， even though it is in a foreign language for many， seems to work very well. What are the procedures6 that are in place to make it so efficient？

Cohen： The most important aspect is the strictly regulated phraseology and communication procedures that aim at avoiding misunderstandings. That is why it is so critical that all pilots and air traffic controllers adhere to these procedures， which afford multiple occasions to catch errors. One procedural requirement， for instance， is careful “readback7” by the pilot of what the controller has said， and “hearback8” by the controller. The latter is supposed to listen to the pilots readback and catch any readback errors. Of course， errors can go unnoticed， especially in a congested airspace. Efforts are underway to shift routine conversations to “datalink” via satellite， where air traffic controllers can communicate with pilots via text messages.

Grosjean： There are some instances where communication between pilots and air controllers break down though. Can you tell us how much is due to faulty English as compared to other reasons？

Cohen： In addition to readback and hearback errors， there are many reasons why communication breakdowns happen. Faulty English is just one of them and restricted to areas with international flights or pilots. Use of non-standard phraseology may or may not be due to lack of English proficiency. There are also stuck microphones which block an entire frequency and there is frequency congestion where a pilot cannot get a word in.

Another problem is airplane callsign9 confusions， where a pilot may take a clearance for another airplane with a similar sounding callsign. Certainly， all these issues are not helped with lack of English proficiency as a compounding10 factor.

Grosjean： How important is accent in communication breakdown since a controller and a pilot might each have a different English accent？ Would you have an example of an incident due to this？

Cohen： There are certainly complaints from both pilots and controllers， and incidences where accents may have played a role. A quick search of an official reporting system in the United States for “foreign accent” yields just 10 reports filed in the past 10 years. However， there are many unreported incidents involving pilots flying into non-English speaking territory， pilots using airports with foreign students， pilots communicating with non-native English speaking crew， and of course air traffic controllers communicating with international flights or pilots.

Grosjean： You give specific recommendations for how air traffic controllers should talk to foreign pilots speaking English. What are they？

Cohen： Controllers should be aware that international pilots may be less familiar with the phraseology or that regional phraseologies may differ. Controllers should be especially careful with numbers and stick to giving them in single digits instead of grouping them， that is， “eight” “three” instead of “eighty-three.” Grouping occurs differently for different languages （three and eighty in German， or four times twenty and three in French）. Units for weights， distances， barometric pressure etc. may also be different in different countries.

Controllers should break the instruction up into its component words by inserting short pauses. Recognizing where one word ends and the next begins is notoriously difficult for listeners of a foreign language. And， of course， controllers should pay extra attention to complete and correct readback. Finally， keeping instructions short will facilitate correct readback and save time over trying to cram too much information into one clearance.

全球每天商業(yè)航班約有10萬架次，這意味著飛行員和空管員之間的交流可達數(shù)百萬次。由于英語是民航國際語言，交流常以這一外語形式進行。這致使一種特殊的雙語形式出現(xiàn)，其專業(yè)程度高，并且必須始終保持精準。雙語如何發(fā)生？效果如何？是否會失??？如有，是何原因引起的？還有哪些地方需要改進？

曾供職于美國運輸部部長辦公室研究和技術處的資深科學家尤迪特·比爾基-科恩博士對這些問題進行了廣泛研究。

格羅讓：在飛行員和空管員交流中，您認為一方或雙方為英語非母語者比例為多少？

科恩：在非英語國家，接近百分之百，因為只有少數(shù)空管員和一部分飛行員是英語為母語者。在英語為官方語言的國家，這取決于國際航班或國際飛行學員比例，因地區(qū)而有所不同。

格羅讓：誰來負責確?？展軉T和飛行員能十分熟練地用英語進行交流？

科恩：這由國際民用航空組織（ICAO）下屬各成員國民航部門負責。該組織要求所有飛行員和空管員熟練掌握航空專業(yè)用語。自2011年3月起，ICAO還要求國際航線上的或與國際航班交流的飛行員與空管員的英語水平達到工作級要求。

格羅讓：總是使用英語嗎？說同一語言的飛行員和空管員，比如，一名德國飛行員與一名德國空管員在通話時是否會慢慢轉用母語？

科恩：哦，他們不應該這樣做。一個重要原因就是所謂的“專用線”，即飛行員和空管員的信息源。空域劃分為不同部分，但在通信中使用同一雷達頻率。作為一名飛行員，通過聆聽同一頻率上其他人的通話，我可以提高情境意識，還能知道誰在附近、其他航班是否遇到我應該知曉的天氣狀況。我甚至能發(fā)現(xiàn)空管員的錯誤，比如把我駕駛的飛機放行至另一架飛機正在使用的跑道上。

如果飛行員和空管員在通話中使用其他語言，在同一空域飛行的非英語母語飛行員就無法從專用線上獲取信息，情境意識隨之降低。

格羅讓：飛行是最安全的旅行方式之一。盡管英語對很多人來說是外語，但用它交流的效果看起來非常好。目前有哪些程序使它如此有效？

科恩：最重要的一個方面就是，為避免誤解，專業(yè)用語和通信程序都有嚴格規(guī)定。這些程序提供多次發(fā)現(xiàn)錯誤的機會，因而所有飛行員和空管員都必須遵守，這一點極為關鍵。比如，陸空通話有一個程序，要求飛行員認真“復誦”空管員指令，空管員要對此進行“監(jiān)聽”，抓住復誦中的任何錯誤。當然，錯誤有可能會被忽視，尤其是在繁忙的空域。目前，業(yè)內設法通過衛(wèi)星把常規(guī)通話轉換為“數(shù)據(jù)鏈”，空管員可通過短信與飛行員交流。

格羅讓：在一些情況下，飛行員和空管員之間的通信會失敗。和其他原因相比，請問有多少是由誤用英語所致？

科恩：除復誦和監(jiān)聽錯誤外，導致通信失敗的原因有很多。英語誤用只是其中之一，僅在國際航班或飛行員身上出現(xiàn)。使用非標準專業(yè)用語可能是因為英語能力欠缺，也可能不是?？ㄗ〉柠溈孙L會堵塞整個頻率，飛行員也會因頻率繁忙而無法加入通話。

另一原因就是混淆飛機呼號。當兩架飛機呼號發(fā)音相似時，飛行員可能會把空管員對另一架飛機的放行誤聽為對自己的放行。英語能力不足這一不利因素顯然會加重這些問題。

格羅讓：空管員和飛行員說英語時可能有不同口音，口音對通話（失?。┯绊懹卸啻?？您能給出一個相關事故案例嗎？

科恩：毫無疑問，飛行員和空管員都抱怨過口音問題。在一些事件中，口音可能是一個原因。在美國一家官方報告系統(tǒng)中快速檢索“外國口音”，發(fā)現(xiàn)過去10年只有10份報告記錄。但是，很多事故都沒有上報。比如，飛行員飛入非英語地區(qū)，飛行員和外國飛行學員共用機場，飛行員與英語非母語機組人員交流，當然還有空管員與國際航班或飛行員交流等情況。

格羅讓：針對空管員如何用英語與國外飛行員交流，您給出了具體建議。請問是哪些？

科恩：空管員應當意識到國外飛行員可能不太熟悉專業(yè)用語，或各地區(qū)用語可能有所不同?？展軉T應格外注意數(shù)字，堅持逐個報出，不要把它們合到一起。比如，應當說8和3，而不是83。組合數(shù)字在不同語言里說法不同（83在德語中是3加80，在法語中是4個20加3）。在不同國家，重量、距離或氣壓單位也有所不同。

在發(fā)送指令時，空管員應當在單詞之間短暫停頓，把每個單詞隔開。對英語非母語者，通過聽來判斷一個單詞結束、下一個單詞開始的位置，極其困難。當然，空管員還應格外重視復誦的完整性和準確性。最后，讓指令保持簡短，不把過多信息塞進一個放行指令，將有助于提高復誦準確性，節(jié)省時間。

（譯者單位：南京航空航天大學）