Verbal Expressions of Risk Communication: A Case Study After the 3.11 Crisis

Abstract

This paper explores problems related to verbal expressions of risk communication. In particular, we analyze several problems that arose during the critical situations caused by the accidents at the Fukushima nuclear plants following the Great East Japan Earthquake from pragmatics, linguistic psychological and social psychological perspectives. e focus on verbal expressions with implicatures and expressions incongruent with the sender’s right of involvement, underscoring that these expressions can lead to inferences on the part of the receiver that were intended by the sender and/or to negative images about the sender.