Aviation English Research: Trends, Gaps, and Innovations

Aviation English is important to support safety and efficiency of air transport. In summary, this paper provides an overview of research conducted in the past two decades exploring Aviation English, focusing on safety, assessment and training. The use of English language within aviation plays an important role in communication failure which is a major factor within the majority of accidents, thus illustrating the importance of English language training for aviation workers. However, there is a discrepancy between regulatory standards and the communication needs in practice of the aviation professional. These assessments are valuable because they reflect the actual requirements of the job. Studies of Korea’s EPTA and Iranian air traffic controllers show there is need for performance evaluation of both intercultural communication and decision making. Incorporating technology, simulation and audiovisual materials enhance learner engagement. These approaches inform teaching and assessment practices by revealing communication methods that remain effective under pressure, as identified through specialized corpora available worldwide. Future research should also address new practices in the industry, including digital multimodal composition and technology. The limitations of the present literature include dependence on only English-language sources, the absence of proper methodologies and the focus on certain geographical areas, while this review is also restricted by the databases included in the process and the time limit set for the publications selected. In general, the results support a very close connection between the proficiency of Aviation English and the safety of operations, thus making it necessary to develop more context-aware, technology-based, and practice-oriented training and evaluation systems.