We report on changes in the expression of epistemic stance in competitive funding applications—that is, applicants’ confidence and certainty towards knowledge and beliefs. We analysed abstracts describing all projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health during the period 1985–2020 for 140 stance features. Trends that we identify indicate that applicants adopt a stance less cautious and less tentative, and increasingly confident, optimistic, and promissory. This is evidenced, for example, by a consistent decline in weak possibility/probability, as expressed by modal verbs (e.g. may, might, should), by epistemic status verbs (indicate, seem) and adverbs (e.g. possible, probable, perhaps); and an increase among features that convey certainty, importance, and empiricism—for example, status verbs (e.g. demonstrate, establish, reveal), and adverbs that emphasize frequency/degree (usually, widely, almost). We argue that (i) these shifts are best understood in relation to increasing salesmanship and structural and cultural shifts within the research ecosystem, and (ii) trends in this dataset are better analysed at the level of individual features, rather than at the level of metadiscoursal categories.

中文翻译：

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NIH 研究经费申请中认知立场的表达趋势：1985-2020

我们报告竞争性资助申请中认知立场表达的变化，即申请人对知识和信念的信心和确定性。我们分析了描述 1985 年至 2020 年期间美国国立卫生研究院资助的所有项目的摘要，包括 140 个立场特征。我们发现的趋势表明，申请人采取的态度不再那么谨慎和试探，而是越来越自信、乐观和有希望。例如，弱可能性/概率的持续下降就证明了这一点，如情态动词（例如可能、可能、应该）、认知状态动词（指示、似乎）和副词（例如可能、可能、也许）所表达的。 ; 以及传达确定性、重要性和经验主义的特征的增加，例如状态动词（例如演示、建立、揭示），以及强调频率/程度的副词（通常、广泛、几乎）。我们认为，（i）这些转变最好与研究生态系统内不断增加的销售技巧以及结构和文化转变相关，并且（ii）该数据集中的趋势在个体特征层面上得到更好的分析，而不是在个体特征层面上进行更好的分析。元话语类别。