Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) textbooks should adhere as closely as possible to the Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP) set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The purpose of the present paper is to examine English linguistic features in VTS textbooks used in China and Korea in comparison with the SMCP in order to determine the degree to which these textbooks adopt and utilize the SMCP. Textbooks used by VTS operators in China and Korea and the SMCP were separately edited and compiled into corpora. In analyzing the data, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted. Software WordSmith 5.0 was utilized to retrieve statistical information and concordance samples. The findings show that the lexico-grammatical patterns in the Chinese and Korean VTS textbooks generally deviate from the formulas of SMCP. The results of the study are expected to help in the design of VTS textbooks and to standardize Maritime English.

• Tianxue Lian(Korea Maritime & Ocean University, Busan 606-791, South Korea)
• Mi-Lim Ryoo(Korea Maritime & Ocean University, Busan 606-791, South Korea) Corresponding author