ABSTRACT
Rescue workers are placed under high demand in high-risk scenarios. The central medium for gaining control of the situation is language. But language is subject to special and pertinent conditions in disaster relief situations. Due to the networking that takes place between the individual troops, language is also an interactive means with far-reaching strategic significance in a large-scale disaster situation. This chapter reviews high risk scenarios and the weak points in a relief operation, analyses linguistic interaction during a rescue mission, and presents an intervention phraseology concept. It uses data from authentic situations as examples, most of which stem from the operations of firefighters and disaster relief workers. These are rescue organizations, and their tasks differ in their make-up from those of the police or the military. The risks can be chemical, biological or radioactive. An analysis of the verbal communication among rescue troops must be based on specific risk scenarios.
