This chapter focuses on a peculiar kind of professional interactions,
those involving pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs), where
participants\u2019 individual identities are undefined and unstable, as actors
participate in them only through their voices, with hardly any other
situational element to rely on, and have to deal with ever different
interlocutors. Thus, their identities within the interaction are
determined exclusively by their use of language and discourse.
Of course, this problematic communicative situation is not
unique to pilots and ATCs, but also applies to some other professional
categories, e.g. call centre workers and helpline call operators.
However, these peculiarities are much more critical in the case of
aviation communication, not only because every new conversation
involves an effort of recontextualization on the part of pilots, but
above all because the decisions made under such demanding
circumstances are highly momentous, and misunderstandings may
have fatal consequences.
Thus, issues relating to professional encounters relying
exclusively on verbal exchanges are highly relevant to the study of
communication failures in aviation accidents, which are the main
object of investigation in this chapter. We propose an integrated
model for their analysis where considerations concerning interactional
circumstances and linguistic exchanges are given pride of place
