“Chip Chip Hurray”. How Food Is Described to Children: A Case Study

This study examines the discursive representation of food in Snacks Around the World (Lonely Planet Kids), a tourism-focused guidebook aimed at familiarising children with diverse culinary cultures worldwide. In particular, it examines how narratives surrounding child-appropriate cuisine are constructed within family-friendly tourism discourse to promote intercultural curiosity, consumption behaviours, and favourable travel associations.

Drawing on the methodological frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2010; van Leeuwen, 2008) and corpus linguistics (Baker, 2006; McEnery & Hardie, 2012), we will examine lexical choices, evaluative language, semantic prosody, and narrative patterns used to describe snacks and food-related practices. A small corpus was compiled from the textual content of the guide, enabling both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Attention will also be given to the representation of national identity, exoticism, fun, and familiarity, as well as the implicit ideologies surrounding taste, health, and global citizenship.