Sociopragmatic Calibration of Preventive Speech Acts in English Institutional Discourse

Institutional communication places two demands on a warning. The message must be clear enough for the addressee to recognize the danger and perform a protective action, while its form must correspond to the participants’ roles, authority and institutional norms. The same risk may therefore be expressed as an order, official rule, recommendation, question or indirect indication. The choice depends on the severity of danger, the participants and the basis that makes the speaker’s intervention legitimate.