The PhD project will investigate the longitudinal effects of interacting with Generative AI (GenAI) chatbots on the second language (L2) development of French learners, with a focus on vocabulary and pragmatics. While conversational AI is increasingly used as a language-learning partner, its actual longitudinal effects on L2 development—and the extent to which learners may also acquire AI-specific linguistic fingerprints—remain largely unexplored.
The project plans on following cohorts of L2 French learners, possibly in Hanoi, Vietnam, over one academic year. It will combine quasi-experimental studies on pragmatics and vocabulary learning and longitudinal corpus analysis of conversation logs.
The doctoral researcher will be part of an interdisciplinary consortium, including two other PhD students, a post-doctoral researcher and five academic supervisors, investigating the impact of GenAI on language, communication, and critical literacy across educational and professional contexts. The broader project aims to address two critical gaps in current research: first, the need to understand how GenAI-produced language may reshape human writing, language learning, and communicative practices; and second, the importance of fostering critical competencies to help users engage thoughtfully with AI-generated content.
The initiative brings together expertise from linguistics, second language acquisition, natural language processing, translation studies, and communication sciences to analyze how AI-generated language influences human language use and first and foreign language learning. By addressing both the linguistic and educational dimensions of generative AI, the project seeks to promote critical AI literacy, mitigate the risks associated with uncritical reliance on GenAI tools, and foster a more informed, ethical, and reflective integration of these technologies into academic and public life.
