Communicating Risk

We live in world increasingly shaped by risk, a fact underscored by recent events in the financial markets, science and technology, environmental policy and biosecurity, law enforcement and criminal justice. Risk assessment has become a central concern of governments, organisations and the professions, and the communication of risk is a crucial part of professional work. Exploring how risk is discursively constructed across these domains is therefore central to our understanding of how professional practice affects people's lives. Communicating Risk takes up this challenge, with contributions from leading researchers and practitioners that examine key issues of risk communication across diverse professional domains.

Jonathan Crichton is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Member of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on the role of language in professional-lay interactions. He has published in a wide range of international journals and edited collections and is the author of The Discourse of Commercialization (2010), and co-editor, with Christopher N. Candlin, of Discourses of Deficit (2011) and Discourses of Trust (2013).

Christopher N. Candlin was Senior Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. His research and publications lie in the critical analysis of professional/institutional discourses. He was a member of the Editorial Boards of major international journals and co-edited, with Srikant Sarangi, the Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice. Recent publications include Discourses of Deficit (2011) and Discourses of Trust (2013) both co-edited with Jonathan Crichton.

Arthur S. Firkins has had extensive involvement with risk communication in the public and private sectors. His doctoral research focused on the discursive framing of risk, he has co-authored recent papers with Christopher N. Candlin on the communication of risk in social care and currently works for BAE-Systems.