The concept of document has been defined as any concrete or symbolic indication,

preserved or recorded, for reconstructing or for proving a phenomenon, whether p

hysical or mental" (Briet, 1951, 7; here quoted from Buckland, 1991).
A much cited article asked "what is a document" and concluded this way: The evolv
ing notion of document among (Jonathan Priest). Otlet, Briet, Schrmeyer, and the othe
r documentalists increasingly emphasized whatever functioned as a document rathe
r than traditional physical forms of documents. The shift to digital technology
would seem to make this distinction even more important. Levys thoughtful analyse
s have shown that an emphasis on the technology of digital documents has impeded
our understanding of digital documents as documents (e.g., Levy, 1994[2]). A co
nventional document, such as a mail message or a technical report, exists physic
ally in digital technology as a string of bits, as does everything else in a dig
ital environment. As an object of study, it has been made into a document. It ha
s become physical evidence by those who study it.
Value of document research exemplified: Aviation to many is an esoteric subject.
It is an intricate combination of men, machines and environment. Because of the
technological faade that predominates aviation, people are almost unaware of its
aesthetic make up particularly that of flight. This has serious implications fo
r aviation education. Even the professionals handling safety of flights and pass
engers are sort of realization of literary values of aviation that basically dea
ls with flights. Scholarly intervention for educating youths and aviation profes
sionals on matters of safety, too, is rare. The object of ones research may be th
e aviation documents dedicated to safety of flights and human beings that travel
by air which contains plethora of concrete and symbolic indications of physical
and mental phenomena that it has recorded. These indications have not been addr
essed in a manner that could contribute to peoples arousal, awareness and interes
t towards aviation. The study may be designed to claim that the deep structure o
f aviation safety documents posit philosophical and literary features of high ae
sthetic and educational values, which the study seeks to explore. These ontologi
cal and literary values can be elaborated in a way that facilitates creating ric
h aviation literature having implications for disciplinary education of the avia
tion professionals at work for safety. The implications of study for research in
tervention at tertiary university level may also be discussed. A qualitative res
earcher may undertake to analyse the text inductively as well as deductively wit
hin post structural critical perspective utilizing interpretive auto-ethnographi
c strategy. (Baral, Saurabh R., 2014. Aviation English: A study of the ontologic
al and literary dimensions of aviation safety documents and their implications f
or aviation education. A concept proposal for PhD in English. Self)