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This article highlights that by focusing on concepts, many contemporary discourses increasingly turn towards (re/definitions of) various abstract ideas while moving their focus away from representations of doers as well benefactors of social and politico-economic processes. Focusing on the process of such an increasingly conceptual nature of discourse as one of the key displays of contemporary neoliberal logic in public and regulatory discourse, the article argues that the concept-driven logic – evident in policies, but also in media and political genres – necessitates new theoretical (and analytical) tools in critical discourse studies (CDS). It is suggested that, on the one hand, incorporation of ideas from within conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) into CDS is necessary. On the other hand, it is also argued that an in-depth rethinking of the ways in which CDS approaches recontextualisation as a concept is equally crucial. As is argued, both insights might help tackling the conceptual dynamics in/of discourses by tracing the conceptual logic of discourse and identifying ideological ontologies of contemporary public and regulatory discourses. They also help scrutinise discourses in which social practice is often regulated and where the image of non-agentic ‘invisible’ social change allows for legitimisation of the often-negative social and politico-economic dynamics.

European Union (EU) water governance operates through structured regulatory discourse that constructs meanings around water quality, risk, and circularity. These semiotic framings shape how environmental law is implemented, how compliance is defined, and how sustainability transitions are managed. This study applies a triadic semiotic framework of Greimassian semiotics, Social Semiotics, and Ecosemiotics, to analyze 11 foundational EU water directives. Using legal text analysis supported by AntConc software, the study deconstructs how regulatory language encodes categories, assigns agency, and positions ecological processes. The analysis reveals that water quality is primarily framed through rigid binary classifications such as compliant versus non-compliant, while risk is spatialized through threshold-based mapping and delineations of responsibility. Circularity is positioned mainly as an industrial-efficiency paradigm rather than an ecologically embedded process. These framings provide legal clarity and facilitate enforcement, but they also limit flexibility and reduce alignment with ecosystem dynamics. Social semiotic patterns show a consistent privileging of state and industrial actors, often marginalizing local communities and multispecies perspectives. Ecosemiotic analysis suggests that governance models rarely reflect the adaptive and fluid nature of aquatic systems. As a result, regulatory language may hinder ecosystem-based and transboundary approaches to water management. This research demonstrates that semiotic structures play a central role in shaping how environmental governance is operationalized. It argues for increased semiotic flexibility in legal design to better accommodate ecological complexity, institutional diversity, and climate variability. By advancing an interdisciplinary method that links semiotic theory with regulatory studies, this work offers new insights into how legal discourse mediates environmental outcomes in the EU context.

The article describes the results of the analysis of the institutional type of discourse – the administrative discourse – in terms of its typology. The study highlights four types of administrative discourse with a descending status vector. The first part of the article is a consideration of the discourse from the perspective of its relatedness to the institutional type, descending and ascending forms of communication, defining its specific features. The essential features of the administrative discourse are defined as follows: the protocoling, the primacy of law in the assessment, the functionality of the communication nature. In the second part of the work in accordance with the field principle the types of administrative discourse are selected and described: consultative, regulatory, evaluative and controlling, which is possible due to the verbalization of speech genres groups united by similar features. The given types of discourse have several common characteristics: a descending status vector of the sender, documenting, and the legitimacy of communication. Accordingly, 4 groups of speech genres were considered: polylogue genres of consultative discourse type, suggesting a collective speech activity; genres- motives for regulatory type, carrying out the regulatory function; assessment genres for the evaluative type of discourse with the aim of public rendering of the positive or negative evaluation; genres typical for controlling administrative discourse in order to monitor all of the above communications.

The article analyses the evolution of European competition policy. It is argued that the content, form, and scope of competition regulation has undergone a major transformation over the past fifty years, which is related to broader socio-economic developments. Until the mid-1980s, competition policy formed part of the institutional nexus of the postwar order of 'embedded liberalism', underpinned by a Fordist accumulation regime and Keynesian welfare institutions. It exemplified strong neo-mercantilist and protectionist traits, allowing for significant distortions of competition, whenever justified for general reasons of industrial and social policy. Since the mid-1980s, gradually, a neoliberal 'competition only' vision came to dominate, giving rise to a more market-based competition regime, in which private rather than public actors prevail, and which seeks to create an ever-bigger 'level playing field' of free markets. This transformation is linked to the broader context of the disruption of the postwar social order and the rise of neoliberalism. A public-private alliance of transnational actors, consisting of the European Commission's DG Competition and transnational business elite networks, were the driving forces behind the 'neoliberalisation' of competition policy.

In various parts of the world, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are actively working towards Reconciliation. In Australia, the context in which we each undertake our work as educationalists and researchers, the Reconciliation agenda has been pushed into schools and English teachers have been called on to share responsibility for facilitating the move towards a new national order. The recently introduced Australian Curriculum mandates that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures be embedded with \"a strong\" but \"varying presence\" into each learning area (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2013). In this paper we consider the tensions between policy and practice, when discourses external to education are recontextualised into the discipline of English. We do so by applying an analytical framework based on Bernstein's (1990, 1996, 2000) sociological theories about the structure of instructional and regulative discourses. Our findings suggest that the space to exert Reconciliatory agendas in the Australian Curriculum English is ambiguous and thus holds the potential to not only marginalise Indigenous knowledges but also to create tensions between policy and practice for non-Indigenous teachers of English.

This book chapter problematizes how to integrate digital technologies in education, particularly in the teaching and learning of mathematics. It discusses how a teacher educator (the author) in a self-study over three years; 2012, 2013 and 2014 incorporated digital technologies in teaching mathematics to student teachers at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. In doing this Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are shown as mediating artifacts in terms of setting up the regulative discourse (Searle, 1969), which is about the management of students and learning materials; to communicate, set up and monitor the stage for learning.

In this chapter, I focus on legal practices and processes associated with sexual assault and domestic violence in Canada and the United States. I begin by examining scholarship that has investigated trial discourse and then move on to consider research that has traced the “movement” of talk from trials or pre‐trial interviews to other sites in the legal system, such as appellate decisions and affidavits. In both cases, I attempt to elucidate the force of gendered ideologies and institutional practices in the legal system, specifically, how they both regulate the kinds of gendered identities participants can take up and create the lens through which such identities are assessed and evaluated.

Abstract Background The study aimed to monitor the Corporate Political Activity (CPA) of Brazil's food and beverage industry, using the regulatory process on front-of-pack nutrition labeling as a case study. Methods A systematic qualitative approach, developed by Mialon et al. within the INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity / Non-communicable Diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support) framework, was employed. The method analyzes publicly available data from industry, government, and academia, accessed via websites, social media, and news outlets. Key industry actors were identified through reports by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) related to the regulation. The dataset comprises materials published between 2017 and 2023. Results 7 episodes of CPA involving instrumental strategies and 5 involving discursive strategies were identified. 4 key actors actively engaged in these Activities: the Brazilian Food Industry Association (ABIA) and the Brazilian Association of Soft Drink and Non-Alcoholic Beverage Industries (ABIR), both national trade associations; Rede Rotulagem, a coalition of 21 industry organizations; and Olho na Lupa, a digital platform with a social media presence representing 11 entities. ABIA and ABIR led coalition-building and information management efforts. Rede Rotulagem coordinated broader sectoral mobilization and framed the debate around health, economic, and cost-related concerns. Olho na Lupa focused on health-oriented discourse. These tactics were collective, proactive, and transactional, following the Hillman and Hitt framework. Conclusions Monitoring CPA in Brazil reveals structured strategies based on coalition and information management, and discourse framing in health and economic terms. Trade associations played a central role by leveraging integrated communication strategies. These findings highlight the need for transparency in public health policymaking. Key messages • CPA in Brazil’s food industry is centrally coordinated, influential, and employs a variety of strategies. • Monitoring CPA is essential to safeguarding the integrity of public health in Brazil.

How does the content of public allegations impact regulatory communication strategies? Employing a multinomial logistic regression analysis and an original data set, this article analyzes the Israeli banking regulator's nuanced responses to public expressions of opinion between 1996 and 2012. We demonstrate this agency's greater propensity to acknowledge problems, yet mostly shift blame to others when faced with claims that regulation is overly lenient, and to deny allegations that regulation is excessive. These findings, although based on one institution, are important because they demonstrate an agency's differential response to external allegations, given their content and its assessment of the relative threat to its reputation. They also suggest that external audiences may be able to shape agency attention and response by carefully framing their claims in light of their understandings of agencies' distinct reputational vulnerabilities.

How do changes in public discourse and regulatory structure affect the acceptance of a consumption practice? Previous research on legitimacy in consumer behavior has focused on the consumer reception of legitimizing discourse rather than on the historical process of legitimation itself. This study examines the influence of changes in the institutional environment over time on the meaning structures that influence consumer perception and practice. To study legitimation as a historical process, a discourse analysis of newspaper articles about casino gambling from 1980–2007 was conducted. Results show that the regulatory approval of gambling is accompanied by a shift in the semantic categories used to discuss casinos and that journalists play a role in shaping these categories. Further, journalists shape the meaning of a consumption practice in three ways: through selection, validation, and realization. Interpreted through the lens of institutional theory, these findings suggest that studies of legitimation should consider changes in public discourse and legal regulation in addition to consumer perceptions of legitimacy.