Risk Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2012 DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01668.

The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”:

A Linguistic Analysis

Max Boholm∗

The analysis combines frame semantic and corpus linguistic approaches in analyzing the role
of agency and decision making in the semantics of the words “risk” and “danger” (both nom-
inal and verbal uses). In frame semantics, the meanings of “risk” and of related words, such
as “danger,” are analyzed against the background of a specific cognitive-semantic structure
(a frame) comprising frame elements such as Protagonist, Bad Outcome, Decision, Posses-
sion, and Source. Empirical data derive from the British National Corpus (100 million words).
Results indicate both similarities and differences in use. First, both “risk” and “danger” are
commonly used to represent situations having potential negative consequences as the result
of agency. Second, “risk” and “danger,” especially their verbal uses (to risk, to endanger),
differ in agent-victim structure, i.e., “risk” is used to express that a person affected by an ac-
tion is also the agent of the action, while “endanger” is used to express that the one affected
is not the agent. Third, “risk,” but not “danger,” tends to be used to represent rational and
goal-directed action. The results therefore to some extent confirm the analysis of “risk” and
“danger” suggested by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. As a point of discussion, the
present findings arguably have implications for risk communication.

KEY WORDS: Agency; corpus linguistics; danger; risk; semantics

1. INTRODUCTION Luhmann.(12−14) Luhmann argues that “risk” refers

In risk research, the meaning of the word
“risk”—the concept of risk—and how its meaning
is related to that of other words such as “danger,”
“hazard,” “safety,” and “uncertainty” has been a
longstanding subject of study.(1−10) One of the more
original suggestions concerning the meaning of
“risk” and how it differs semantically from “dan-
ger”1 is proposed by the German sociologist Niklas
∗ Address correspondence to Max Boholm, Center for Public Sec-
tor Research, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 720, SE-40530
Göteborg, Sweden; max.boholm@gu.se.
1 Luhmann originally wrote in German,(11) so he discussed the
German words “Risiko” and “Gefahr,” translated as “risk” and
“danger.”(12) When writing in English, Luhmann himself used
the words “risk” and “danger.”(13,14) To what extent Luhmann’s
distinction between “risk” and “danger” equals the often dis-
cussed distinction between “risk” and “hazard”(3,6) is an empiri-
to potential future loss as a consequence of a de-
cision. He suggests that decision making is an es-
sential semantic component of the concept of risk:
“we can speak of risk only if we can identify a deci-
sion without which the loss could not have occurred”
(p. 16).(12) Furthermore, according to Luhmann, this
element of decision making distinguishes the mean-
ing of “risk” from that of “danger”; danger is not con-
ceived to be the result of a decision, but rather as a
potential loss resulting from something “external” to
the one affected.
cal question in its own right, as is the relationship between the
German words “Risiko” and “Gefahr” and the English words
“risk,” “danger,” and “hazard.” Some authors consider “danger”
to be synonymous with “hazard.”(5,8,15) English written literature
referring to Luhmann, however, often refers to a distinction be-
tween “risk” and “danger,” not “risk” and “hazard.”(16,17)

281 0272-4332/12/0100-0281$22.00/1 
C 2011 Society for Risk Analysis
282
The potential loss is either regarded as a consequence
of the decision, that is to say, it is attributed to the deci-
sion. We then speak of risk—to be more exact of the risk
of decision. Or the possible loss is considered to have
been caused externally, that is to say, it is attributed
to the environment. In this case we speak of danger.
(pp. 21–22)(12)
Luhmann, furthermore, finds this distinction
based on decision making to be clear-cut.
The concept of risk is, however, clearly distinguished
from the concept of danger, that is to say, from the case
where future losses are seen not at all as the conse-
quences of a decision that has been made, but are at-
tributed to an external factor. (pp. 101–1102)(12)
The quotation indicates that Luhmann assumes
that decision making plays the role of a contrastive
semantic component between “risk” and “danger.”
However, it should be noted that Luhmann con-
structs a dichotomy out of effects of decisions, on
one hand, and the effects of external factors, on the
other, and that he takes the former to be essential to
the semantics of “risk” and the latter to that of “dan-
ger.” Since it is possible that the external factor is in-
deed a decision—Luhmann indeed recognizes this—
a more precise formulation of his position would in
fact entail two dichotomies: the dichotomy between
decision and no decision, and the dichotomy between
internal and external causes of potential loss. That
Luhmann’s distinction is based on two dichotomies
rather than one, however, is not always clear, and he
repeatedly assumes decision making to be the cen-
tral criterion for distinguishing the meaning of “risk”
from that of “danger” (see, e.g., the last quotation
above). Luhmann’s idea concerning the meaning of
“risk” in relation to “danger” can be summarized as
follows: while both words share the semantic element
of potential loss, “risk” refers to potential loss to
someone as a consequence of his/her decision (inter-
nal), while “danger” refers to potential loss to some-
one not incurred by a decision, at least not by a deci-
sion by the one affected him/herself (i.e., the victim),
but by some external cause beyond the victim’s con-
trol.2
2 Luhmann adds that “speaking of risk,” rather than of danger, or
vice versa, is a matter of perspective taking. One and the same sit-
uation can be described, or framed, in terms of “risk,” which, ac-
cording to Luhmann, implies that the potential loss is incurred by
a decision; in terms of “danger” there is no such decision, the po-
tential loss being incurred by an external factor (possibly another
person’s decision) beyond the affected person’s control. Funda-
mental to the concept of risk is “multiple contingency.” First, the
contingency involved in a situation of decision making: a choice
of doing action A rather than some alternative to A; second, the
Boholm
The idea that there are conceptual/semantic con-
nections between risk, agency, and decisions is not
unique to Luhmann, but has been suggested else-
where in risk research, although perhaps not as ex-
plicitly.(7,16−21)
Luhmann’s semantic analysis of “risk” and “dan-
ger,” like many other semantic assumptions about
the core concepts of risk research, is based on in-
tuitive judgments and stipulated definitions, rather
than on empirical studies of ordinary language
use.(20,22) This is indeed, since antiquity, the classi-
cal way of doing conceptual analysis, but a growing
trend in linguistics in recent years is to use corpus
data on natural language use to assist semantic anal-
yses.(23−28) The corpus linguistics tradition contains
some ground-breaking systematic empirical analy-
ses of the semantics of “risk”;(22,29−36) in consonance
with Luhmann,(12) those studies that use the theoret-
ical perspective of frame semantics have concluded
that elements of decision making and agency are in-
deed relevant to the semantics of “risk.”(29−31,34)
The determination of word meaning, from a
frame semantic viewpoint, is an interactive process
between describing the conceptual structure that un-
derlies the word under examination, i.e., its frame,
and examining how this structure is realized in lan-
guage use, for example, the linguistic structures
that surround the word. More specifically, a seman-
tic frame consists of frame elements and certain
relationships between the elements. According to
Fillmore and Atkins, the frame underlying the lex-
eme RISK (including both noun and verb), i.e., the
Risk Frame, consist of the following frame elements
and relationships between them:(30)
• Protagonist: the central person in the frame
• Bad Outcome: the possible bad outcome, or
harm
• Decision: the decision that could trigger this
• Goal: the desired outcome
• Setting: the situation in which the risk exists
• Possession: something or someone valued by
the protagonist and endangered in the situa-
tion
• Source: something or someone that could
cause the harm
chosen alternative may result in some future loss. In Luhmann’s
terms, a situation in which someone is potentially affected by the
decision of some other agent is not a situation of multiple contin-
gency for the one affected and therefore not referred to by “risk”
but rather by “danger.”
The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”
Elsewhere, Fillmore and Atkins(31) suggest a
longer list of elements, while Fillmore(29) suggests a
shorter one.3 In addition, the names of the elements
differ somewhat in their work; for example, the ele-
ment “Decision” in the above list(30) is also referred
to as “Deed”(29,31) and “Action.”(34) In essence, how-
ever, the elements suggested are very similar; for ex-
ample, “Deed” is defined in a way similar to “Deci-
sion” as “the act that brings about a risky situation”
(p. 83).(31) Common to Decision and Deed, as these
are defined, is that agency of some form (i.e., act or
decision) is the cause of a potential bad outcome.
All of the elements of a frame can be linguisti-
cally realized in language use by surrounding words
and grammatical structures. However, in a particu-
lar use of a word, elements of the associated frame
are selected, and only these are focused on and spec-
ified in that particular instance.(30,31,37) The following
examples (1–4), taken from Fillmore and Atkins,(30)
can be used to illustrate how different elements of
the Risk Frame can be focused on in different ways
(note that they analyze RISK as both a verb and a
noun against the same frame).
(1) “He risked falling down”
(2) “He ran the risk of falling down”
(3) “He risked his life”
(4) “He risked climbing the mountain”
In all four examples (1–4), the pronoun “he” oc-
cupies the functional role of subject and instantiates
the Protagonist of the situation. Furthermore, Bad
Outcome is realized by “falling down” in (1) and (2),
Possession by “his life” in (3), and Decision (else-
where Deed or Action) by “climbing the mountain”
in (4). Although the same elements are realized in (1)
and (2), namely, Protagonist and Bad Outcome, the
latter element (Bad Outcome) is realized in slightly
different ways. In (1), Bad Outcome is realized as the
object of the verb RISK, while in (2) the same element
is realized as a complement of the noun RISK, in turn
occupying the functional role of object of the verb
RUN .
The theoretical ideas of Luhmann(12) are strik-
ingly similar in some respects to those of Fillmore
and Atkins,(30,31) since both take decision mak-
ing and agency to be key aspects of the meaning
of “risk,” as being causes of potential adverse
3 Seealso FrameNet, which is a database of semantic frames de-
veloped by Charles J. Fillmore and colleges; http://framenet.icsi.
berkeley.edu, last retrieved November 20, 2010.
283
effects.4 However, the two theoretical accounts dif-
fer in two significant ways. First, for Fillmore and
Atkins(30,31) the element Decision is part of the Risk
Frame, which structures the meaning of RISK, but
particular uses of the lexeme do not necessarily have
to specify this element, for example, (1–3) above, or
even not make it implicitly relevant to interpretation,
as in the sentence “babies ran the risk of hypother-
mia there” (p. 367).(30) Luhmann’s position postu-
lates that decision making is an essential component
of the concept of risk, and if this element is absent it is
a case not of risk but of danger. Second, Fillmore and
Atkins do not hold,(30,31) as Luhmann does, that the
concept of risk is clearly separate from that of danger
in terms of agency.
2. AIM
This study, following the recommendations of
Hamilton et al.(22) and Zinn,(20) aims to analyze more
closely the concepts of risk and danger using an
empirical corpus linguistic approach. Specifically, it
addresses the question of how agency and decision
making are relevant to how these notions are concep-
tualized. In addressing this issue of the conceptual re-
lations between agency, risk, and danger, we will take
Luhmann’s distinction between “risk” and “danger”
as a point of departure. If Luhmann’s ideas are rele-
vant to ordinary language use, we would expect the
concepts of decision making and agency, by which
“risk” and “danger” are supposedly distinguished, to
be reflected in the natural use of these words. Ac-
cordingly, the following three hypotheses concerning
natural language use will be tested:
• First, we would expect the strong conceptual
connection between decision making and risk,
on one hand, and the weak conceptual con-
nection between danger and decision making,
on the other, to be reflected in the colloca-
tional behavior of “risk” and “danger.”(23,27)
If Luhmann’s idea is relevant to natural lan-
guage use, “risk” should commonly co-occur
with words referring to decision making and
choice, and this tendency should be stronger
for “risk” than for “danger.”
• Second, if Luhmann’s analysis has any bearing
on how we actually use these words, we would
4 There are also similarities to other theoretical accounts of risk.
For example, the elements of Possession and Source are very sim-
ilar to the related Object at Risk and Risk Object in the work of
Hilgartner,(38) Boholm and Corvellec,(39) and Garland.(8)
284
expect the elements of the Risk Frame associ-
ated with decision and agency, namely, Deci-
sion and Goal, to be realized with “risk” to a
greater extent than with “danger.”
• Third, in relation to Luhmann’s idea that “dan-
ger” refers to potential loss as a result of an ex-
ternal factor, we would expect the element of
Source to be more commonly realized in con-
texts of “danger” than in contexts of “risk.”
It should be noted that Luhmann does not make
any explicit claim that the distinction he makes be-
tween the concepts of risk and danger is manifested
in ordinary language. However, it is not unreason-
able to assume that such a general conceptual distinc-
tion could be reflected in ordinary language use.
3. METHOD
A growing trend in linguistics is to address re-
search questions about word meaning by analyzing
corpus data on natural language use.(23,25−28,40) A
corpus is a collection of texts, and recent techni-
cal developments have made possible large machine-
readable corpora. The corpus used for this study is
the British National Corpus (BNC), a 100-million
word corpus of British English including excerpts
from, for example, books, periodicals (newspapers
and magazines), political speeches, and sport com-
mentaries.(41) BNC includes both written and tran-
scribed spoken language, though mainly written (ap-
proximately 90%). The written part of the corpus to a
large extent consists of books (57%) (e.g., bestsellers,
prize winners, and high-frequency library loans) and
periodicals (newspapers and magazines) (33%). The
transcribed spoken part includes, in addition to po-
litical speeches and sport commentaries, lectures,
news commentaries, classroom interactions, trade
union speeches, business meeting interactions, med-
ical, legal, and business consultations, sermons, re-
ligious meetings, parliamentary proceedings, legal
proceedings, broadcast chat shows, and phone-ins.
The texts of the corpus are mainly from the time
period from 1985 to 1993 (91%), while smaller por-
tions are from the time periods 1975 to 1984 (5%)
and 1960 to 1974 (2%), while 2% of the texts are
of unknown date of production. The corpus is word-
class tagged, i.e., each word of the corpus has been
assigned a word class (e.g., noun, verb, and adjective)
and a word class subcategory (e.g., singular and plu-
ral for nouns). Data cited herein have been extracted
Boholm
from the British National Corpus, distributed by
Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of
the BNC Consortium. All rights in the texts cited are
reserved. See Ref. 42 for more details of BNC.
Before presenting details on the methodological
procedure, some notes on the notation used hence-
forth are necessary. Word forms, including exem-
plified linguistic material, are indicated by quota-
tion marks, for example, “risk,” “risks,” “danger,”
“dangers,” and “there is a risk.” Small capital letters
throughout a term are used to represent lexemes (or
lemmas). A lexeme is an abstract notion for a set of
word forms related by inflection.(27,43) For example,
the lexeme DANGER (noun) includes the word forms
“danger” (singular) and “dangers” (plural) and their
genitive forms, “danger’s” and “dangers’.” The lex-
eme ENDANGER include “endanger,” “endanger,”
“endangered,” and “endangering.” In English, word
forms representing nouns and verbs sometimes co-
incide. The word forms “risk” and “risks” are used
as both verbs (e.g., “to risk” and “he risks his life”)
and nouns (e.g., “a risk” and “many risks”). The lex-
eme RISK , as noun, includes the word forms “risk,”
“risks,” “risk’s,” and “risks’,” and the lexeme RISK ,
as a verb, includes the word forms “risked” and “risk-
ing” in addition to “risk” and “risks.” Frame ele-
ments are referred to by initial capital letter and ital-
ics are used to emphasize a constituent. For example,
in “he risked his life,” the pronoun “he” is empha-
sized as the subject of its clause and realizing the role
of Protagonist.
To test for explicit references to decision mak-
ing all sentences containing DECIDE, DECISION,
CHOOSE , and CHOICE in combination with RISK
(noun and verb), the noun DANGER or the verb
ENDANGER have been retrieved from BNC. Related
words in other word classes such as the adjectives
RISKY and DANGEROUS , as well as nominal but de-
rived forms such as DANGEROUSNESS, are for practi-
cal reasons not addressed here.
To compare frame element realization, four ran-
dom samples of sentences from BNC have been re-
trieved, containing (i) RISK as noun, (ii) RISK as a
verb, (iii) DANGER , and (iv) ENDANGER, each con-
sisting of 100 instances. The entire sample for testing
frame element realization thus is 400 sentences. The
frequency and specific word forms in BNC of RISK
(verb and noun), DANGER , and ENDANGER are listed
below (the nouns RISK and DANGER have no genitive
forms in BNC, i.e., “risk’s,” “risks’,” “danger’s,” and
“dangers”):
The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”
• RISK ,
noun: “risk” (9,358), “risks” (2,343)
• RISK ,verb: finite base form “risk,” (170), in-
finitive “risk” (918), past tense “risked,” (209),
past participle “risked” (69), “risking” (238),
“risks” (75)
• DANGER: “danger” (5,819), “dangers” (1,605)
• ENDANGER: finite base form “endanger” (28),
infinitive “endanger” (152), past tense “endan-
gered” (9), past participle “endangered” (67),
“endangering” (103), “endangers” (25)
Each of the total of 400 sentences was then coded
to realize the elements of the Risk Frame. For cod-
ing, a modified, mainly specified, list of elements
from those proposed by Fillmore and Atkins and dis-
cussed above has been used:(30)
• Protagonist: the person(s) at risk or in danger
in a situation. This element roughly corre-
sponds to the category of “Protagonist” in Fill-
more and Atkins.(30) However, their character-
ization of Protagonist is not very precise (“the
central person in the frame”). As the term is
used here, the Protagonist is always a victim in
the situation and potentially also an agent.
• Valued Object: the object(s) at risk or in dan-
ger in a situation. This element roughly corre-
sponds to “Possession” in Fillmore and Atkins,
i.e., “someone or something valued by the
protagonist and endangered by the situation”
(p. 367),(30) but here it is only used for ob-
jects, i.e., only for “something,” not “someone
or something.” However, it should be noted
that the Valued Object can be an abstract ob-
ject (e.g., “freedom”) and often is something
strongly associated with an implicit or explicit
protagonist, for example, a possession of the
protagonist (e.g., a person’s life or money).
• Bad Outcome: the potential bad outcome of
the situation. This corresponds to Fillmore
and Atkins’ category, but it should be noted
that descriptions involving the frame element
of Valued Object indirectly address situations
having bad outcomes, namely, the bad out-
come that some valued object is lost or dam-
aged.(33)
• Source: someone or something other than the
Protagonist and Decision that is responsible
for the potential Bad Outcome posing a threat
to a Valued Object. This is just a specified
definition of Fillmore and Atkins’s, element
Source.(30)
285
• Decision: the decision or action that may result
in a bad outcome. As this element is defined
here, it combines the definition of Deed(31) and
Decision.(30)
• Setting: the setting of the situation (e.g., the
time or place of the situation).
• Goal: the desired outcome in the situation.
The last two elements are used in the same way
as by Fillmore and Atkins.(30)
In addition to the task of coding which ele-
ments are realized, the grammatical features of func-
tion (e.g., subject, predicate, object, and adjunct)
and form (e.g., noun phrase, verb phrase, and sub-
ordinate clause) have also been coded for the ele-
ments.(30,31)
4. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
4.1. Explicit Reference to Decision Making
Luhmann frequently emphasizes the key role of
decision making in the semantics of “risk.”(12) If such
a strong conceptual connection between risk and de-
cision making is a prominent feature of natural lan-
guage, then we would expect it to be reflected in the
use of RISK (verb and noun). In parallel, given Luh-
mann’s contrast between the meanings of “risk” and
“danger,” a much weaker connection between dan-
ger and decision making would be expected. A first
step toward testing the relationship between deci-
sion making and risk versus danger is to investigate
how frequently RISK (verb and noun), DANGER , and
ENDANGER co-occur in the same sentences as DECI -
SION and DECIDE , and the in part semantically sim-
ilar words CHOICE and CHOOSE. Table I shows the
raw frequencies and percentages of RISK (noun and
verb), DANGER , and ENDANGER that co-occur with
DECISION and DECIDE , CHOICE , and CHOOSE in the
same sentence.
From Table I we can conclude that it is not
very common for DECISION , DECIDE, CHOICE , and
CHOOSE to co-occur with RISK or with DANGER and
ENDANGER . A more detailed investigation of the
sentences in which words for decision making and
risk or danger co-occur reveals the various relation-
ships between decision making and risk or danger
denoted. In these sentences explicitly referring to de-
cision making and risk or danger, one type of rela-
tionship is that the decision referred to is the cause
of the risk or danger referred to (i.e., the kind of re-
lationship in which Luhmann is interested). This re-
lationship is instantiated with RISK as noun or verb
286 Boholm

Table I. Co-Occurrence in BNC of RISK, Verb (n = 1,679), RISK, Noun (n = 11,701), DANGER (n = 7,424), and ENDANGER (n = 384) with
the Verbs DECIDE and CHOOSE and the Nouns DECISION and CHOICE in the Same Sentence

RISK , v RISK , n ENDANGER DANGER

n % n % n % n %

DECIDE (“decide,” “decides,” “decided,” “deciding”) 39 2.32 90 0.77 11 2.86 35 0.47

CHOOSE (“choose,” “chooses,” “choosing,” “chose,” “chosen”) 21 1.25 58 0.50 0 0.00 14 0.19
DECISION (“decision,” “decisions”) 17 1.01 142 1.21 4 1.04 47 0.63
CHOICE (“choice,” “choices”) 8 0.48 54 0.46 0 0.00 16 0.22

in 140 cases, i.e., 34% of the sentences making ex-
plicit reference to decision making and RISK and 1%
of all sentences using RISK as a noun or verb. Taken
together, 17 cases of DANGER or ENDANGER instan-
tiate the same relationship, i.e., 14% of the sentences
making explicit reference to decision making and
DANGER or ENDANGER and 0.2% of all sentences
using DANGER or ENDANGER. See (5)–(11) for ex-
amples:
(5) “She decided to risk going out”
(6) “The decision puts 339 jobs at risk”
(7) “5000 offshore jobs could be at risk if the gov-
ernment decides to impose constraints on the
industry’s access to a free market”
(8) “Workers who choose to go on strike have al-
ways faced the risk of being dismissed”
(9) “A borrower risked more than his home if he
chose the wrong lender”
(10) “The Greek government has decided to build
a massive complex of dams to divert the
Akheloos River, endangering protected wet-
land areas”
(11) “. . . there was a danger that they might
deviate along the path recently chosen by
Yugoslavia”
It should be noted that the verb RISK occurs as a
catenative complement of the verb DECIDE (mainly
“decided”), which is not the case with ENDANGER,
i.e., there are constructions of the type “decided to
risk” (e.g., (5) above), but no “decided to endanger.”
Other kinds of relationships between decision
making and risk or danger that are represented in
these sentences making explicit reference to decision
making include decisions concerning whether or not
something should be regarded as a risk or danger
(e.g., “the jury decided she had not endangered other
people’s lives” and “he decided I wasn’t such a bad
risk, after all”) and decisions concerning how to man-
age a certain risk or danger (e.g., “It was decided to
stop the car around junction 16 to minimize the dan-
ger to the public” and “We decided that the best ap-
proach was to minimize the risk”).
Based on this brief survey of sentences making
explicit reference to decision making in the contexts
of RISK (noun and verb), DANGER , and ENDANGER,
it can be concluded that there is no strong support
for risks being conceptualized as consequences of de-
cisions, while dangers are not. Both risks and dan-
gers are represented in such relationships and both
rarely. The tendency, however, is less rare for RISK
(noun and verb) than for DANGER and ENDANGER .
From this exploration of how RISK, DANGER , and
ENDANGER are related to decision making in an ex-
plicit sense, we now turn to analyzing these words
from a frame theory perspective.
4.2. Frame Element Realization
According to Fillmore and Atkins,(31) represent-
ing a situation having a potential adverse outcome
is fundamental to the semantic field centered on
RISK (verb and noun) and including DANGER (noun)
and ENDANGER (verb). This core meaning can fur-
ther be specified by the realization of further frame
elements, linguistically expressed in the sentence.
Frame element realization within the sample for RISK
as verb and noun, DANGER (noun), and ENDANGER
(verb) is presented in Table II.
The nouns RISK and DANGER are quite similar
in terms of frame element realization (discussed fur-
ther below), while the verbs RISK and ENDANGER are
different from each other. Hence, nominal and ver-
bal uses of the two concepts differ. Concerning the
verbs, the elements of Protagonist, Bad Outcome,
and Goal are more commonly realized using the verb
RISK than the verb ENDANGER , while the elements of
Valued Object and Source are more commonly re-
alized using ENDANGER than RISK (verb). When it
The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger” 287

Table II. Realization of Frame Elements of the Risk Frame in of Valued Object (76%) as, for example, in (15) be-
Sampled Sentences Containing the Noun RISK (n = 100), the low, or, but less frequently, the element of Protago-
Verb RISK (n = 100), the Noun DANGER (n = 100), and the
Verb ENDANGER (n = 100); Figures Refer to the
nist (6%) as in (16), but never Bad Outcome or De-
Frequency/Percent of Sentences that Contain the Frame cision.
Element in Question; A Sentence Can Contain More Than One
Frame Element, so the Table Does Not Add Up to 100% (15) “. . . we are endangering God’s creation”
(16) “. . . the Government’s lack of interest might
RISK ENDANGER RISK DANGER
also endanger John”
Frame Element (Verb) (Verb) (Noun) (Noun)

Protagonist 81 15 36 24 Since ENDANGER often occurs in the passive

Bad Outcome 51 0 28
Decision 52 55 24
Goal 13 0 1
Setting 13 3 8
Valued Object 27 91 17
Source 5 68 18
comes to the frame element of Decision, RISK (verb)
and ENDANGER are virtually the same.
The frame elements of the Risk Frame can be re-
alized in a number of ways. Due to space constraints,
it is impossible to account for all of these variations in
detail here; for more details regarding the grammat-
ical means of frame element realization, see Refs. 30
and 31. We will focus on patterns of frame element
realization that are relevant to understanding the se-
mantics of RISK (verb and noun), DANGER (noun),
and ENDANGER (verb) in relation to agency (and
nonagency). Because of the lack of relevance to the
hypotheses tested here, the frame element of Setting
will not be discussed any further.
Semantically, the grammatical object of the
verb RISK realizes the frame elements of Bad Out-
come (51%), Valued Object (24%), or Decision
(21%).(30−33) See (12)–(14) for examples of these
three uses in which the constituent “the cracking and
the warping” in (12) realizes the frame element of
Bad Outcome, the genitive phrase “her own life” in
(13) realizes Valued Object, and the gerund “using
her torch” in (14) realizes Decision.
(12) “You have to risk the cracking and the warp-
ing”
(13) “She had not cared about risking her own life”
(14) “. . . she risked using her torch”
These three patterns for the verb RISK largely ex-
plain the frequency seen in Table II for the elements
of Bad Outcome, Valued Object, and Decision in the
context of the verb RISK. Turning to the verb ENDAN -
GER , we do not find the same patterns. The object
of the verb ENDANGER does instantiate the element
37 voice (18%), the Valued Object (15%) and Protago-
17 nist (3%) can also be subjects of the clause. The pas-
0 sive voice construction is substantially less frequent
14
10
for the verb RISK (only 2%). These patterns for the
30 verb ENDANGER largely explain the high frequency
of Valued Object and low frequency for Bad Out-
come seen in Table II.5
Turning to the frame elements instantiated by
the subjects of clauses with the verbs RISK and
ENDANGER , certain differences between the verbs
further explain the differences found in Table II. The
verb RISK is typically used in sentences with a noun
phrase as a grammatical subject that semantically
constitutes the frame element of Protagonist (71%).
For example, this is the case in (12–14), in which the
Protagonist (the person affected in a risky situation)
is realized by the pronouns “you” in (12) and “she” in
(13) and (14). The verb ENDANGER differs from RISK
(verb) in that its typical use is in sentences in which
the subject, a noun phrase, realizes the element of
Source (48%), i.e., someone or something, other than
a Protagonist or Action, responsible for a Protago-
nist or Valued Object being threatened. The Source
may be an agent as in (15) above (“we”) (32%), but
it need not be (16%); for example, the Source can be
an attitude as in (16) or a thing as in (17) below, in
5 Looking more closely at the Valued Object in the cases of both
RISK and ENDANGER, the most common Valued Object is LIFE
(e.g., “life” and “his life”). Half of the Valued Objects in cases
of RISK consist of LIFE . Other common Valued Objects in cases
of RISK have a financial orientation (five cases), for example,
MONEY , PENSION , and JOB . The noun LIFE is also the most com-
mon Valued Object in cases of ENDANGER (28 occurrences). Val-
ued Objects of ENDANGER clearly related to LIFE are HEALTH
(five cases), SOUL (two cases), and SURVIVAL (two cases). Other
Valued Objects in the case of ENDANGER relate to safety (seven
cases), for example, SECURITY and SAFETY, finance and career
(12 cases), for example, JOB , CAREER, POSITION, SUCCESS , and
DEVELOPMENT , values of liberal society (six cases), for example,
COMMUNITY and FREEDOM , and the environment (eight cases),
for example, “environment,” “lakes and falls,” “protected areas,”
and animals, such as “dolphins” and “lemurs,” or more generally
“species.”
288
which “the 400,000-volt cable” is the subject of EN -
DANGER and realizes the Source.
(17) “. . . the 400,000-volt cable could endanger
health”
In addition to being realized as a subject, the
Source may be realized as an adjunct introduced by
the preposition “by,” for example, in the case of pas-
sive constructions (e.g., “jobs have been endangered
by the Labour Opposition”).
The Source differs from that of Protagonist and
Valued Object in that the Source itself is not threat-
ened (it is only threatening), while the Protago-
nist and Valued Object are always threatened (even
though the Protagonist is potentially self-responsible
for being threatened). The realizations of Protago-
nist, Bad Outcome, Valued Object, and Source in
association with the verbs RISK and ENDANGER in-
dicate that these verbs have different agent-victim
structures; they represent different relationships be-
tween the threatened element of the situation and
the element responsible for its being threatened.6 In
cases or RISK, the agent of the situation is usually also
the victim of the situation, but in cases of ENDAN -
GER , the agent is usually not a victim.7
In about half the cases of both RISK and ENDAN -
GER , the element of Decision is realized. This is done
in a number of ways. The Decision can be realized as
the object of the verb RISK , as mentioned above and
exemplified in (6) (21% of RISK as a verb). It can also
be an adjunct of the clause (15% of the verb RISK
and 18% of ENDANGER) consisting of, for example,
a prepositional phrase as in (18) or an “if” clause as
in (19).
(18) “By obstructing it, BR said tonight, they’re en-
dangering the lives of a hundred and seventy
thousand passengers who travel on the Great
Western every day”
(19) “If Mr Bush vetoes the measure, he risks losing
abortion-rights voters”
6 Arguably, the default reading of constructions of the type “x risks
y” is that x is a victim of the situation, and potentially also the
agent (i.e., agent = victim). In comparison, the default reading
of constructions of the type “x endangers y” is that y is the victim,
or valued object, and x is an external source, agent or not (i.e.,
agent = victim). However, by using, for example, reflexive pro-
nouns it is possible to achieve the first type of reading (agent =
victim) for endanger, for example, “he endangered himself.”
7 See the entry on Endangering on FrameNet: http://
framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/data/frameIndex.xml?
frame = Endangering
Boholm
The Decision can be realized as the subject of
the clause as in example (20) and (21) (6% of the
verb RISK and 13% of ENDANGER). Hence the sub-
ject of the clause does not have to realize a Protag-
onist in cases of RISK (verb) or a Source in cases of
ENDANGER .
(20) “. . . to argue would be to risk public defeat”
(21) “Spending too much time on education may
actually endanger one’s career”
A fourth way that the Decision is realized is
as the verb and object of the main clause, in cases
in which RISK and ENDANGER are constituents of
subordinate (infinite) clauses (8% the verb RISK
and 12% of ENDANGER ). Examples of this are
(22) and (23).
(22) “Risking everything he grabbed two tomatoes
and the biggest apples before bedding down
for another night under cover of trees”
(23) “A man who lived a ‘dreamlike existence’
set fire to two multi-storey blocks of flats in
Edinburgh, endangering the lives of hundreds
of residents”
In addition to these patterns for the realization
of Decision, some other patterns are not presented
here for reasons of space, i.e., two cases of RISK and
11 cases of ENDANGER.
In some cases of RISK (verb), the frame element
of Goal is realized in its context (13%), which spec-
ifies the situation as involving goal-directed agency.
This is most often done as an adjunct; for example,
“It’s the most common form of heroism, risking your
life to rescue one of your men.” The element of Goal
is not realized in cases of DANGER or ENDANGER,
and close to never in cases of nominal RISK.
Concerning the frame element realization in con-
texts of the nouns RISK and DANGER , there are fewer
differences between them than between the verbs
RISK and ENDANGER . This indicates, as noted above,
that the nouns are more similar in their use than are
the verbs. In the contexts of the nouns RISK and DAN -
GER , the main patterns for frame element realization
are the following:
• The element of Protagonist is mainly realized
as subject of the clause (29 of 36 cases of RISK
and 18 of 24 cases of DANGER). In cases of
RISK (noun), this is mainly done in association
with the verbs TAKE (e.g., “someone else took
the risk“), BE (e.g., “Should all members of the
enemy’s population be equally at risk in time
The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”
of war?”), and RUN (e.g., “you run the risk
of developing high blood pressure”). In cases
of DANGER , this is mainly done in association
with the verbs BE (e.g., “A small minority of
competitors are very much in danger of spoil-
ing the good image of equestrian sport”) and
FACE (e.g., “they had faced one danger after
another”).
• The element of Bad Outcome is mainly real-
ized as complements to the nouns RISK and
DANGER (25 of 28 cases of RISK and 32 of
37 cases of DANGER). Most often the com-
plement consists of prepositional phrases with
“of,” as in “the risk of developing high blood
pressure” or “the danger of slippage,” or as
a “that” clause (mainly DANGER) as in “a dan-
ger that social workers will be demoralized.”
Note that the element of Bad Outcome is never
realized in cases of the verb ENDANGER but is
very common in cases of the noun DANGER,
even more common than in cases of the noun
RISK (see Table II).
• The realization of Decision is largely carried
out in the same ways as discussed in the cases
of the above verbs: as an adjunct of the clause,
the subject of the clause, or as the verb and ob-
ject of the main clause. In cases of DANGER ,
Decision is also realized as a noun comple-
ment, for example, “there is a danger of read-
ing too much.”
• The Source is mainly realized as a complement
of RISK and DANGER (e.g., “the environmental
risks of substances” and “the dangers of elec-
tricity”) and as the subject of the clause (e.g.,
“Cheap graves for livestock pose health risk”
and “On the coast, blowing sand and seaspray
presents obvious dangers to your camcorder’s
lens”).
• In cases of the noun RISK, the Valued Object
is mainly realized as the subject of the clause
(e.g., “Christmas bread supplies will be at risk”)
and as a modifier (e.g., “health risk”), and in
cases of DANGER , as a noun complement (e.g.,
“danger to life and limb”).
In light of this overview of the patterns of frame
element realization and the data on explicit reference
to decision making, it is now possible to make some
assertions as to the semantics of “risk” and “danger”
in relation to decision making and agency.
289
4.3. The Semantics of “Risk” and “Danger” in
Relation to Agency
The above results can be organized according
to the following categories in relation to agency: (i)
agency versus nonagency framing, (ii) agent-victim
structure, and (iii) specification of rational goal-
directed agency in sentences with RISK, DANGER ,
and ENDANGER .
4.3.1. Agency Versus Nonagency Framing
The situation represented by a sentence may in-
volve agency, i.e., the potential bad outcome (includ-
ing adverse effects on a victim or valued object) can
be the result of an action or decision (agency fram-
ing), or be the result of some other cause (nonagency
framing). The above results indicate two important
patterns relevant to agency versus nonagency fram-
ing in relation to RISK, DANGER , and ENDANGER.
First, sentences about risk and sentences about dan-
ger often refer to actions or decisions that have
potential bad outcomes, i.e., by means of the compo-
nent for the frame element of Decision. Such a com-
ponent explicitly referring to the act pertaining to the
situation is used in half of the cases of the verbs RISK
and ENDANGER , and in about one in five cases of the
nouns RISK and DANGER (see Table II). In addition
to there being an explicit constituent referring to an
action or decision, a sentence can sometimes be inter-
preted as implicitly involving an act, for example, in
most cases in which risking and endangering is pred-
icated to people. Reconsider (12) and (15) discussed
above:
(12) “You have to risk the cracking and the warp-
ing”
(15) “. . . we are endangering God’s creation”
Even though (12) lacks an explicit constituent re-
alizing the frame element Decision, a plausible in-
terpretation of (12) is that the person referred to by
“you” risks “the cracking and the warping” as a re-
sult of doing something; cf. Zaefferer.(33) Likewise,
the endangering of God’s creation in (15) is plausibly
interpreted as a consequence of some implicit act by
the agents referred to by “we.” These interpretations
of (12) and (15), however, should be compared with
Fillmore and Atkins’s example, “babies ran the risk
of hypothermia there” (p. 367),(30) which does not al-
low for the interpretation that the babies ran the risk
of hypothermia as a result of their actions. This lat-
ter example illustrates that it is not always the case
290
that agency interpretations are possible, not even
implicitly, despite risking and endangering being
predicated to people.
Nonagency of the situation may, however, be ar-
ticulated more explicitly, which leads to the second
point about agency versus nonagency framing in rela-
tion to RISK, DANGER , and ENDANGER. By means of
a nonagent Source, the situation is framed as involv-
ing a potential bad outcome as a result of some other
cause than an action, and such situations are more
commonly referred to using DANGER and ENDAN -
GER than using RISK . The frame element of Source is
more common in cases of DANGER and ENDANGER
than of RISK (see Table II). Furthermore, the Source
is often a nonagent (nonperson) (51 of 98 cases). In
these cases, the Source is a thing (e.g., “danger from
broken glass”), a process (e.g., “a possible chain re-
action endangering the whole world community”),
or attitude (e.g., “dishonesty is a danger” and (16)
above). (The cases of an agent Source are related to
the agent-victim structure discussed below.) In com-
parison, in cases of RISK , the element of Source is less
common (see Table II). So while the first pattern (ex-
plicitness of the frame element Decision) is equally
common in the cases of both RISK and ( EN ) DANGER,
the latter pattern (explicit nonagent Source) is more
common in the cases of DANGER and ENDANGER
than RISK as a noun or verb (51 vs. 17 cases).
In relation to this discussion of agency or nona-
gency framing, it should be noted that passive voice
is more common in the case of ENDANGER than of
RISK (18 vs. 2 cases). Passive voice can be used to put
the agent of a situation in the background, putting
the person or object acted on in focus.(44,45) Hence,
the use of passive voice for ENDANGER tends to give
the agent a less prominent role (e.g., “jobs have been
endangered by the Labour Opposition”) or com-
pletely omit the agent from the account (e.g., “Some
of this criticism is based on the fear that Western in-
terests might be endangered”). The use of nonagent
Source and passive voice suggest a stronger tendency
toward nonagency framing in cases of DANGER and
ENDANGER than in cases of RISK , despite the fact
that DANGER and ENDANGER are often also used in
an agency framing way.
4.3.2 Agent-Victim Structure
The situations represented in sentences using the
verbs RISK and ENDANGER differ in agent-victim
structures. The situations addressed by RISK mainly
involve a Protagonist involved in some (explicit or
implicit) act that may result in some bad outcome.
Boholm
The situation addressed by ENDANGER, in contrast,
is a situation in which some Source affects a Valued
Object or a Protagonist (with or without acting). This
finding to some extent gives support to Luhmann’s
idea that “danger” is the result of an “external fac-
tor.” According to Luhmann, in cases of “danger,”
“the possible loss is considered to have been caused
externally” (p. 22) as “one is exposed to dangers”
(p. 23, emphasis added).(12) This observation is cor-
roborated by the finding on the use of ENDANGER in
natural language, but this relationship typically does
not hold for RISK.
4.3.3 Specification of Decision and
Goal-Directed Agency
Accounts using RISK tend to be specified accord-
ing to parameters of planned and calculated goal-
directed action in relation to the bad outcome to
a greater extent than accounts using DANGER and
ENDANGER . The frame element of Goal is only re-
alized using the verb RISK. Another result pointing
in this direction is that RISK (as a noun and verb), in
sentences making explicit reference to decision mak-
ing, is more often than DANGER and ENDANGER re-
lated to decisions as their effects, i.e., in constructions
of the types exemplified in (5–9) above (e.g., “She de-
cided to risk going out”). Arguably, such construc-
tions not only represent a potential bad outcome as
the result of agency in an unspecified manner, but
also characterize a situation as one involving a delib-
erate decision in which an agent is aware of the po-
tential bad and positive outcomes of doing something
(e.g., “Despite being told he might die, he decided to
take the risk”).(30)
4.4. The Relevance of Luhmann’s Distinction
Between “Risk” and “Danger” for Natural
Language Use
Based on the results found here concerning nat-
ural language use, it can be argued that Luhmann’s
characterization of the concept of risk in terms of
agency and decision making is highly relevant. The
frame element of Decision (defined as the decision
or action that may result in a bad outcome) is often
realized using RISK, as both verb and noun. How-
ever, not only is agency in this sense important for
RISK , but it is also important for the meanings of
DANGER and ENDANGER . The frame element of De-
cision is commonly realized in the cases of both RISK
and ( EN ) DANGER.
The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”
Luhmann’s ideas can be combined with a dy-
namic view of word meaning, for example, in line
with “meaning potential,”(40,46−50) which recognizes
that different but related senses of a word are re-
alized depending on the context of use. Such pol-
ysemous structures of words are not discussed by
Luhmann, but are crucial for understanding the
meaning of “risk” and “danger” in ordinary lan-
guage. The words RISK, DANGER , and ENDANGER
are used to express a range of different but related
meanings in relation to agency and decision making:
from agency to nonagency involving,(30) and from re-
ferring to the fairly unspecific doings of people with
potential unwelcome results to specific references to
the goals of intended action and decision making.
From a corpus linguistic viewpoint, we can account
for both the core and more peripheral parts of the
meaning potential of a word, including strong and
weak tendencies in meaning association.(23,24,27,51) In
applying a dynamic approach to word meaning, a ver-
sion of Luhmann’s idea about the difference between
“risk” and “danger” can be formulated that fits the
empirical results presented here.
If we imagine a spectrum ranging from agency to
no agency, uses of DANGER and ENDANGER tend to
cluster toward the no-agency end of this spectrum
to a greater extent than do uses of RISK . Further-
more, if we imagine a spectrum ranging from fairly
unspecific agency to more specific forms of rational
goal-oriented agency, another tendency is for uses of
RISK to cluster toward the goal-oriented agency end
of the second spectrum to a greater extent than do
uses of DANGER and ENDANGER. However, in re-
lation to the first tendency, it should be noted that
both RISK and ( EN ) DANGER are conceptualized as
adverse effects of agency (i.e., there is considerable
overlap in how the words are conceptualized in nat-
ural language use), and the second tendency is not
very strong, although it is stronger for RISK than
for ( EN ) DANGER. It should also be noted that Luh-
mann(12) regards danger to be external, “the possi-
ble loss is considered to have been caused externally”
(p. 22), a tendency that is indeed found in the empir-
ical material studied here.
5. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
This research makes three contributions. First,
it deepens our understanding of the concepts of
risk and danger. It demonstrates the relevance of
a key idea of Luhmann emphasizing the role of
291
decision making and agency in understanding the se-
mantics of risk.(20)
Second, this study demonstrates how a linguis-
tic approach may be helpful in risk research and in
seeking to understand its fundamental concepts—cf.
Hamilton et al.(22) —an endeavor usually embarked
on from the perspectives of philosophy, psychology,
sociology, or mathematics, but seldom from that of
linguistics.
Third, the results have implications for the field
of risk communication. No doubt the choice of word
influences the content of what is being communi-
cated, and knowledge of what words refer to is ar-
guably crucial in effectively communicating informa-
tion conveying an intended content. Communication
is an interactive process that requires not only an ac-
tive sender, but also an active recipient whose inter-
pretation is essential for content to be shared.(52) In-
congruences between assumptions of the sender and
the recipient on word meanings and distinctions be-
tween words are therefore possible factors effecting
successful sharing of information. In relation to the
many distinctions between “risk” and related terms
such as “danger” and “hazard” in scientific texts, we
might, first, raise the question whether these words
are distinguished in ordinary language use, and sec-
ond, if so, if they are distinguished similarly in the
scientific literature?(6) If a sender, who is well in-
formed of the definitions and distinctions of the sci-
entific field, is communicating with someone who is
not as familiar with those distinctions and definitions,
but rather relies on how the same words are used in
ordinary language, there is a potential source for mis-
understandings.
Concerning the first issue, distinctions may not
be as clear-cut in natural language as they are in
the scientific literature. Both “risk” and “danger” are
polysemous words. They have different, but related,
meanings, which are actualized in different contexts.
Partly due to their polysemy, the words of “risk” and
“danger” have to some extent overlapping meaning,
hence are partial synonyms. For example, many of
the elements of the Risk Frame are instantiated both
with RISK and ( EN ) DANGER.
Concerning the second issue, this study has
found that “risk” has a strong agency orientation,
and this finding differs somewhat from a more rei-
fied view of risk in which a variety of things, such as
avian flu, nano-technology, nuclear power plants, and
toxic substances, together with non-agency-involving
processes, such as earthquakes and floods, rather
than (everyday) acts, are considered prototypical
292
examples of risks. Based on the present findings,
this view of risks as things or processes fits the use
of “danger” rather than “risk” as these terms are
used in natural language. However, a detailed anal-
ysis of “risk” in various communicative contexts is
needed before taking this argument any further. A
corpus linguistic approach offers a promising avenue
by which future studies can address such questions
as how words are used in different communicative
contexts by different language users (e.g., journalists,
scientists, and writers).(27) In addition, it is the per-
fect tool for addressing questions of the conceptual-
ization of risk in different languages (and cultures)
and for deepening our understanding of the seman-
tics of additional near synonyms of “risk,” for exam-
ple, “hazard” and “peril,” and their antonyms, for ex-
ample, “safety” and “security.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was funded by research grants
from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, the
Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Sys-
tems, the Swedish Transport Administration, and the
Swedish Maritime Administration. I wish to thank
Åsa Boholm, Hervé Corvellec, Ragnar Löfstedt, and
the anonymous reviewers for constructive criticism
and suggestions.
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