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Care theory and critical discourse analysis were utilized to examine bilingual reference interactions extracted from 20 h of observations in a U.S.-Mexico border town public library. The researchers identified three types of caring discourse, including commiseration, soothing, and expressions of condolence. They also associated five conversation devices with caring discourse: humor, idiomatic expressions, interjections, lexical intensifiers, and whispering. Notably, librarians' infrequent production of elements of care were primarily in English regardless of community members' language choice. Further analysis revealed that linguistic expressions of care frequently masked unintentional, deficit-based perceptions about community members. Other salient themes that emerged include camouflaged community members' needs, clashes between intersectional and shared identity(ies), and librarians' dismissal of community members. Ultimately, bilingual caring discourse in this setting was often an interpersonal and institutional illusion. • Care theory is a valuable framework to investigate reference discourse in public libraries. • Critical discourse analysis illuminates forms of linguistic care in bilingual reference interactions. • Indicators of commiseration, soothing, and condolence masked unintentional, deficit-based stereotypes. • Librarians produced caring discourse infrequently and primarily in English regardless of community members' language choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public urban parks are valued community amenities and an integral part of an environmentally just society. Given increasing concerns of gentrification associated with urban parks, this paper critically analyzed the discourse of urban park development to understand its main message, rhetorical devices, and potential to affect praxis. I find current discourse surrounding park development overstates the ability of public urban parks to reverse trends in social stratification while understating the possible downsides to urban park development. The discourse of 'parks-as-social-healers' is produced by urbanists with significant sociopolitical power in their respective fields who use three distinct discursive tools to enhance the discourse's utility and efficacy. Using the power and influence of wealthy foundations to back up their claims, this discourse exerts hegemonic influence on urban public space development. Downplaying gentrification and exaggerating social benefits—hallmarks of this discourse—can lead to environmental injustices, potentially exacerbating park access disparities. • Urban park development discourse leads to environmental injustices by overstating benefits and understating consequences • Producers of this discourse exert hegemonic power over contemporary urban park development using multiple discursive tools • Downplaying urban park development's social and environmental injustices will perpetuate such injustices [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unhealthy diets are increasing contributors to poor health and mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Government interventions targeting the structural drivers of unhealthy diets are needed to prevent these illnesses, including nutrition labelling regulations that create healthier food environments. Yet, implementation remains slow and uneven. One explanation for slow implementation highlights the role of politics, including powerful ideological discourse and its strategic deployment by economically powerful actors. In this article, we advance research on the politics of nutrition policies by analysing political discourse on nutrition labelling regulations within an influential and under-studied global institution: the World Trade Organization (WTO). We identified WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee meeting minutes with reference to nutrition labelling policies proposed by Thailand, Chile, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Uruguay (2007–2019; n = 47). We analysed the frames, narratives, and normative claims that feature in inter-country discourse within TBT meetings and examined how actors mobilize ideological and material sources of power via these statements. We find that informal government challenges to nutrition labelling proposals within the Committee featured a narrative that individualized the causes of and solutions to poor diet, downplayed harms from industrialised food products, and framed state regulation as harmful and unjust. These non-technical claims mobilised neoliberal ideology and rhetoric to contest the normative legitimacy of members' proposals and to de-socialize and de-politicize poor diets. Furthermore, high-income countries (HICs) re-framed policy goals to focus on individual determinants of poor nutrition whilst calling for their preferred policies to be adopted. Patterns of discourse within TBT meetings also had striking similarities with arguments raised by multi-national food corporations elsewhere. Our findings suggest that non-technical and ideological arguments raised during TBT meetings serve as inconspicuous tools through which nutrition labelling policies in LMICs are undermined by HICs, industry, and the powerful ideology of neoliberalism. • Critical discourse analysis of informal challenges to nutrition labelling polices. • Informal challenges occurred at the World Trade Organization (WTO), 2007–2019. • Challenges individualized, de-socialized, and de-politicized unhealthy diets. • Challenges invoked neoliberal ideology and industry rhetoric. • Discourse, and its deployment by powerful actors, may inconspicuously shape policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• All celebrity chefs show an Epicurean-like approach to food but with individual preferences for other philosophical stances. • Some celebrity chefs reinforce stereotypes of gendered discourse, others challenge them. • Celebrity chefs tend to present themselves as examples of good practice in healthy dieting. The study investigates the websites of ten British celebrity chefs, ranging between the age of 38 and 82. They were chosen to be a representative sample in terms of gender, age and, above all, culinary personas. Using the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) approaches, the study examines the paragraphs that precede the recipes in order to understand the attitude towards food that makes the chefs easily recognizable as specific culinary personas. The ways in which the chefs linguistically construct food-related discourse are interpreted according to four philosophical stances that correspond to four approaches to food found in Ancient Greek philosophers, namely Hedonism, Epicureanism, Platonism, and Asceticism. The analysis reveals that celebrity chefs show a predominant Epicurean approach, at the same time combining elements from the other ideologies. The chefs are also found to shape discourse in ways that challenge the hegemonic, gendered ideologies around food and cooking by positioning themselves as positive role models for a healthy, and yet pleasurable, food experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]