Preventing major accidents and the language of complexity

Abstract

In this article, the question of language is considered from the perspective of safety science, as a marker of potential limitations in current risk management practices in high-risk industries. Our main concern is understanding how the language used in daily risk management practices may serve or disserve the prevention of major accidents, as well as what opportunities being aware of such language may yield for improving current practices. We propose 10 different ways of assessing the strengths and limitations of risk management practices through the lens of the language in use. Our main intention is to clarify what characterizes the language of complexity, and how it may contribute to a more functional approach to the prevention of major accidents on a practical level.

Keywords:

• Language
• major accidents
• accident prevention
• system safety
• complex systems

Note

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language.