ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
The rise of promotional rhetoric in Interdisciplinary field Discussion sections: a diachronic perspective
Provisionally accepted
Yumei Zhu*
Xuemei Li- Sichuan University of Arts and Science, Dazhou, China
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In recent decades, the growing competition to publish internationally has made the Discussion section increasingly promotional, as authors interpret and evaluate their findings to highlight research significance. However, this section also risks exaggerating a study’s contribution with promotional discourse. The current study examines the diachronic changes of promotional strategies in Communication research articles (RAs) Discussion sections by analyzing two corpora from 1980–1981 and 2020–2021. Drawing on Moreno’s (2021) framework of promotional steps and Hyland’s (2005) stance model, findings revealed a marked increase in the frequency of promotional steps and stance markers. The observed changes indicated a shift toward more implicit, subtle and strategical forms of persuasion. This study contributes to the study of promotional discourse in academic writing and calls for greater recognition of rhetorically modest and transparent writing practices as markers of scholarly credibility, encouraging editorial and review policies that reward integrity alongside visibility.
Keywords: promotional step, hyping stance marker, diachronic change, Interdisciplinary field, research evaluation
Received: 14 Aug 2025; Accepted: 12 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhu and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yumei Zhu, zhuyumei22@gmail.com
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