Flight Attendant Discourse

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, it’s Kate Hunter from Burlington, Vermont.

Hi, Kate. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Kate. What can we do for you?

Well, I love your show.

Thank you.

I travel all the time and I fly.

And I noticed a change in the past couple of months that felt like a virus had taken over the flight attendants.

And they all went over a very short period of time from saying things like, put your overhead or your carry-on in the overhead bin and make sure your tray table is in a full upright and locked position to saying put that carry-on in that overhead container and make sure that tray table is in the full upright and locked position.

And it started out just a few of them, and then all of a sudden all of them were saying it.

And I keep sitting there thinking, am I the only person that’s noticed that this virus has taken over the airplane?

That’s so interesting.

Do you fly just one airline or is it more than one?

That’s my question, too.

I fly predominantly one airline because if you do that, they treat you really well.

And I noticed it first on, you know, it’s an airline that has both the regional flights and the cross-country flights.

And so I noticed it first on the regional flights, and then it seemed to take over the national flights.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that was dictated from on high.

You know, I thought that, but it sounds so much like an idiomatic expression.

So I sort of wondered if anybody studies how idiomatic expressions get adopted by the population.

They do study that, but I don’t know of any, except for one thesis, I don’t know of any work that’s been done to study how language travels among airline workers.

Martha, you seem to be hinting at what I’m thinking here, which is there is an incredible amount of training behind the scenes for flight attendants.

And a lot of what they say is pre-scripted, even down to the language that they need to use when they ask you, say, to turn off your phone or to get back to your seat and so forth.

And a lot of it is distancing language.

They kind of want to try to not address you directly because it’s more deferential to you and you will feel more respect from them if they’re not acting.

Oh, you think that’s it?

Well, that’s something that is actually regulated by some of the airlines.

If you feel like somebody is deferential to you, you’re more likely to obey them.

That would make sense.

And if there’s not a mock kind of over-familiarity there, you’re less likely to take liberties as well as a passenger with what’s happening on the plane.

Yeah. I mean, basically, you’re talking about a customer service script, right?

Yes. It’s padding. It’s couching language.

Yeah. And I’m wondering if it’s language that makes your ears perk up somehow because it’s a set of rote instructions again and again, and it gives you a little bit of time to process the fact that they’re giving you an order.

But the that thing that that pronoun use, that demonstrative that, I believe is what that is.

I haven’t quite encountered it on airlines.

Yeah.

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe there’s some subtle difference if you ask somebody to move that laptop if it’s not yours.

You know, if you said, I want you to move your laptop and then the passenger says, well, it’s not my laptop.

You know, and then it slows things down because they’re all about efficiency.

They’re all about making things happen quickly.

And particularly with bags.

Kate, have you been in a position where you’ve been helping somebody else put their bag in the overhead?

Right.

I mean, they don’t know that it’s yours.

They haven’t matched your face to that bag.

Right.

Right.

That may be it.

We have more than a few people who work in the airline industry who listen to this show.

I know we do.

Guys and gals, if you have an opinion on this, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or tell us about it in an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Kate, thank you so much for your call.

We’re going to try to get to the bottom of this.

No promises, though, all right?

Terrific.

Thanks very much.

Yeah, thanks for listening.

Well, yeah, keep listening and let us know if you hear anything else.

I’m really curious about this now.

I’m really curious about this now.

If you find out more about it, all right?

I sure will.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

That thesis that I mentioned is pretty interesting.

It’s very academic, but it was by Barbara Clark at the University of London in 2013, and it’s called Flight Attendant Discourse in Commercial Aviation.

Ooh, ooh, ooh.

Yeah, but she’s not only talking about the language between flight attendants and the passengers, she’s also talking about the language between the pilots and the flight attendants, and then the behind-the-scenes language used by the airlines to communicate in their private forums online.

Really interesting stuff because a lot of that stilted language that you hear as a passenger also shows up behind the scenes.

It is the language of their institution.

Right, right.

And it’s all about efficiency, right?

It’s all about moving people from one place to another.

I have a friend who’s a flight attendant, and she told me that they even noticed right down to the fact that, well, do you know which soft drink takes the most time for the fizz to go down?

Oh, wow. No, that’s awesome. I didn’t know that.

If you order a Diet Coke on a plane.

You’re a bad guy.

Well, yeah, you’re less than, because Diet Coke takes the longest for the fizz to settle.

And so my friend said that a lot of times what flight attendants will do is just give you the whole can so that they don’t have to mess with it.

They’re not necessarily supposed to do that.

I can’t speak for her or anybody else, but that’s what she says.

It’s a no-no.

Like I said, if you work in the airline industry or you can talk about the language that flight attendants use to their passengers from behind the scenes, we’d love to hear from you.

877-929-9673.

Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.