This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Hamilton, C. Articles by Nerlich, B. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The meanings of ‘risk’: a view from corpus linguistics

Universiteé de Haute Alsace

Svenja Adolphs

Brigitte Nerlich

University of Nottingham, UK

In the past, some confusing claims about the meaning of ‘risk’ have been made in the sociology of risk literature. In this article we present and discuss some empirical data from linguistic corpora that elucidate what risk means in ordinary language. This might provide social scientists with a firmer ground on which to base future statements pertaining to the meaning of risk. After a discussion of the problem, we analyse the word ‘risk’, as both noun and verb, with recourse to three corpora containing over a hundred million contemporary English words. We examine whether or not the meaning of ‘risk’ is stable and consistent across a variety of social contexts to test the commonplace view that ‘risk’ is at times manipulated in ideological ways. Data from the corpora, and the methods of corpus linguistics, therefore suggest ways of reconsidering claims about the meaning(s) of ‘risk’.

Key Words: cognitive semantics • corpus linguistics • risk • risk society • semantic prosody • sociology of risk

Discourse & Society, Vol. 18, No. 2, 163-181 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926507073374


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?