The Evolving Sentiments in Professional Communication: A Diachronic and Cross-Disciplinary Study of Academic Writing

Hua Wang Sun Yat-sen University ; Qingshun He Sun Yat-sen University

Abstract

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Background:</i></b> The strategic use of positive and negative language is important to stance and credibility construction in professional communication. Academic writing is a primary mode of expert-to-expert communication, where linguistic sentiments reflect authorial negotiation and knowledge presentation. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Literature review:</i></b> While prior research suggested a linguistic positivity bias in specific contexts, diachronic trends in positivity and negativity across disciplines remains unexplored, particularly regarding how such shifts reshape communicative functions. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Research questions:</i></b> RQ1. What are the diachronic trends of linguistic positivity and negativity in academic writing across soft and hard sciences? RQ2. How do communicative functions of sentiment-laden sentences evolve across the two disciplinary groups? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Methodology:</i></b> A corpus of 3000 articles published between 1974 and 2023, from soft and hard sciences was compiled. Computational sentiment analysis was combined with manual rhetorical coding to identify sentiment trends and communicative functions. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Results:</i></b> Soft sciences become more neutral over time. Hard sciences remain stable in negative sentiment, but show an increase in positive sentiment scores. Functionally, soft sciences favor positive evaluations when introducing prior studies and attenuate sentiment in conclusions. Hard sciences increasingly introduce prior work critically and frame conclusions positively. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Conclusion:</i></b> These findings reveal evolving disciplinary norms in professional communication, where sentiment is strategically employed to construct knowledge and persuade peers. Writers may amplify innovation through positive framing or signal research gaps through critique. Such insights inform professional communication pedagogy by guiding students to balance critique and promotion to enhance professional authority and disciplinary alignment. Future research may examine sentiment patterns in other professional genres, such as corporate social responsibility reports and popular scientific texts.

Journal
IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Published
2026-06-01
DOI
10.1109/tpc.2026.3685774
CompPile
Open Access
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