Abstract/Summary

This paper addresses some of the problems associated with attempts to engineer trust between consumers and commercial concerns through the regulation of language. It argues that many such attempts are based on a naïve view of language and communication which ignores the complex ways regulations affect how language is used by different stakeholders in different contexts for different purposes. As a way to unravel this complexity, a model is suggested based on mediated discourse analysis, which focuses on how regulated language is shaped by the interaction among different kinds of texts, different kinds of social relationships and different kinds of historical bodies involved in formulating such language and using it to take social actions. This model is applied to two case studies: the EU’s Nutrition and Health Claim Regulation and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The analysis demonstrates how regulated language is sometimes understood very differently by different people and reveals how regulations designed to foster trust can sometimes result in less trustworthy behaviour from companies and increased confusion and distrust from consumers.