{"id":265,"date":"2025-11-14T12:30:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/?p=265"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:30:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:30:25","slug":"november-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/2025\/11\/14\/november-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"November 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>William Agius (ZHAW\u00a0School of Engineering) on language, culture and communication in aviation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On 14 November 2025, CULCOM hosted a talk by\u00a0William Agius, Deputy Head of the Centre for Aviation of the School of Engineering at the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, which explored the critical role of language proficiency and cultural knowledge in aviation safety. As a global industry, aviation constantly navigates challenges arising from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds amongst both crews and passengers. The discussion focused on the use of English as a lingua franca, highlighting how \u2018aviation\u2019 English differs significantly from everyday English, which complicates the notion of a \u2018native\u2019 speaker. The talk concluded by stressing the importance of specialized testing that accurately meets the specific requirements of the aviation industry.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-266\" src=\"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/files\/2025\/11\/Untitled-300x221.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/files\/2025\/11\/Untitled-300x221.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/files\/2025\/11\/Untitled.jpg 764w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zhaw.ch\/en\/about-us\/person\/agiu\">William<\/a>\u00a0is the Deputy Head of the Centre for Aviation of the School of Engineering at the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. William\u2019s research focusses on test and rating scale development in contexts of (English) language use for specific purposes as a lingua franca. He is the lead developer for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrypointnorth.com\/services\/elpac-test\/\">ELPAC<\/a> test suite for air traffic controllers and pilots.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Agius (ZHAW\u00a0School of Engineering) on language, culture and communication in aviation On 14 November 2025, CULCOM hosted a talk by\u00a0William Agius, Deputy Head of the Centre for Aviation of the School of Engineering at the ZHAW Zurich University of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/2025\/11\/14\/november-2025\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1699,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1699"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/culcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}