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Subject: search.filters.subject.Code switching (Linguistics)

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    Language switching in aviation : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Aviation at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2018) Daskova, Martina
    Clear and precise communication between pilots and air traffic controllers is a precondition for safe operations. Communication has long been identified as a major element of the cockpit–controller interface, explaining one third of general aviation incidents (Etem & Patten, 1998). Yet, despite multilingualism with English as the lingua franca being a characteristic of aviation communication, little research appears to have investigated the efficiency of operation of bilinguals alternating between their dominant, usually native, language and English in a bilingual air traffic environment. The studies undertaken for this research sought to rectify this situation by examining the cognitive aspects of situation awareness during language switching in aviation. Quantitatively and qualitatively analysed responses to an online-distributed survey aimed at investigating the current bilingual situation in aviation revealed that while situation awareness for the majority (76%) of native-English speakers was adversely affected by bilingualism, almost 30% of bilinguals also reported their situation awareness being affected. Subsequent experimental analyses using a language switching paradigm investigated how participants recognize a target call sign, identify an error and predict in bilingual compared with monolingual English conditions. The effect of the language condition participants’ native Chinese only, English only, or a mix of both, varied across the three tasks. Call sign recognition performance was found to be faster in the English condition than in the bilingual condition, but accuracy did not differ, a finding that was attributed to the effect of call sign similarity. However, when the task was more complicated, the difference between the conditions diminished. No effect on performance was found for simultaneously listening to two speech sources, which is potentially analogous to cockpit communication and radio calls. The error analyses served to test for response bias by calculating sensitivity, d', and decision criterion C in accordance with Stanislaw and Todorov’s (1999) Signal Detection Theory calculations. Several cognitive implications for practice were proposed, for example, in Crew Resource Management (CRM) training and personal airmanship development, exploration of own behavioural biases might be used to adjust the placement of the criterion. The cognitive implications largely focused on affecting attitudes to increase awareness. Attention was focused on performance of bilinguals to identify which language condition facilitated faster and more accurate responses. The findings were unable to support any of the conditions, leaving the question: Would a universal language for communication on radio frequencies be worth considering, to allow everyone to understand what is said? Disentangling the effects of language switching on the performance of bilingual pilots and air traffic controllers remains a task for future studies.
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    Bilingualism in German-born immigrant children in New Zealand : a case study : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M.A. in Second Language Teaching at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1995) Walker, Ute
    This study investigates the bilingualism of four German-background children in New Zealand. The aim of the research was to gain more in-depth information about the processes involved in a language contact situation to complement findings already made at the macro level with a focus on groups. A case study approach enabled the collection of rich qualitative data from a variety of sources which were examined from a sociolinguistic as well as a psychosocial perspective in order to address the questions of language choice and distribution, language attitudes and language and identity. The subjects' successful L1 maintenance after one to eight years in the host country did not correspond with the trend of rapid language shift found among many immigrant children. This was explained as a consequence of the availability of domains of language use where language choice was revealed to be predominantly participant orientated. Family members in particular were shown to have a strong influence on the choice of German as a code of shared intimacy that also extended into settings outside the home. While the children displayed social interaction patterns that indicated successful integration into the dominant culture they also maintained social networks with German speakers across domains which increased their exposure to L1 and ensured its continued use. This complementary distribution of German and English appeared to be supported by both the children's and parents' positive attitudes towards being bilingual and to the L1 itself. As a consequence, the children's situation was characterised by dual group membership and L1 maintenance instead of assimilation and total language shift to L2.