Mandarin–English Code-Switching in Aviation Phraseology: A Critical Review of Bilingual Control and Neurocognitive Evidence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70088/qmy8kn59Keywords:
aviation phraseology, code-switching, bilingual control, neurocognition, bilingualismAbstract
Mandarin–English code-switching is an underexamined but theoretically informative feature of aviation phraseology. It occurs in a safety-critical communicative ecology that combines standardised formulae, English abbreviations and call signs, Mandarin operational instructions, and frequent bilingual training. This critical review integrates research on aviation communication, bilingual language control, and event-related potentials (ERPs). It distinguishes cross-language code-switching from phraseology–plain-language alternation and evaluates behavioural, ERP, EEG, and MEG evidence on direction asymmetry, switching experience, proficiency, phrase frequency, and domain-general control. Switch costs are neither invariant nor reducible to a single component: early negativities may reflect interference detection or lexical selection, the N400 is sensitive to lexical-semantic prediction and integration, and late positivities can reflect controlled updating or integration. The review also synthesises Chinese–English ERP studies of general lexical and sentence contexts. These studies show that direction and grammatical locus modulate component profiles, clarifying that the critical gap is not the absence of Chinese–English neurocognitive research but the absence of published ERP work using aviation phraseology as critical material. The Adaptive Control Hypothesis, the Control Process Model, and bilingual lexical-access models jointly suggest that aviation expertise and repeated exposure to phraseological units may reshape processing. The review concludes by identifying methodological priorities for a cumulative literature, including the measurement of professional language experience, the separation of phraseological units from isolated switched words, and the integration of behavioural and neurocognitive evidence.References
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