“WORDS FOR THE WORST”: LEXICAL AND PHRASEOLOGICAL VARIATIONS IN DISASTER DISCOURSE ACROSS BRITISH, AMERICAN, AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH
“WORDS FOR THE WORST”: LEXICAL AND PHRASEOLOGICAL VARIATIONS IN DISASTER DISCOURSE ACROSS BRITISH, AMERICAN, AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates lexical and phraseological variation in disaster-related discourse across three major varieties of English: British English (BrE), American English (AmE), and Australian English (AusE). Drawing on comparable national news corpora, the analysis documents systematic differences in how these varieties select synonymic terms – such as disaster, catastrophe, calamity, and crisis – and in the characteristic collocational and idiomatic patterns they produce. Corpus-based frequency analysis, collocational profiling, and semantic prosody examination reveal that variation is not merely superficial but reflects deeper conceptual and cultural orientations toward risk, catastrophic events, and collective response. British English tends toward institutional framing and linguistic understatement; American English demonstrates intensification, preparedness discourse, and greater register permeability; Australian English exhibits pragmatic flexibility shaped by recurring environmental hazards. The findings contribute to variational linguistics, World Englishes scholarship, and cognitive sociolinguistics, while carrying practical implications for international disaster management, cross-cultural media communication, and the localisation of emergency preparedness materials.

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