From risking "life" to "sounding like a fence-sitter"—Discourse-semantic changes in The Times 1785-2009

Beck’s Risk Society (1992) triggered large debates about a societal shift characterized by growing controversies about humanly produced risks. The media plays a central role in this process, providing knowledge and an arena for public debate. However, scholars working in risk studies have paid little attention to long-term linguistic changes in the discourse-semantics of risk in the media. This article reports on a research initiative addressing this topic, in which a historical analysis of The Times (London) was used for a case study of the ‘at the risk of’ construct. The ‘at the risk of’ expression was one typical way how the notion of ‘risk’ was used in news coverage during the 18^th and 19^th Century even though it occupied a quantitatively small space in the news. However, during the 20^th Century its meaning changed from a descriptive term reporting substantial risks of life and death to a rhetoric and discourse marker that shapes social relationships. This article examines this change and suggests possible reasons behind it.