Time/Date: 3:30-5PM, Thursday, February 13

Speaker: Robert Godwin-Jones, Virginia Commonwealth University

Title: Generative AI, L2 pragmatics, and critical AI literacy

Abstract: Generative AI systems produce language that is remarkable in its resemblance to human speech patterns. Teachers (and learners) have found that current AI systems, like ChatGPT, offer extraordinary opportunities for second language learning and instruction. At the same time serious concerns have been raised over how AI systems may supply faulty information, can be used by students to circumvent assignment completion, and, through their Western, largely English language training data, provide language output that is linguistically and culturally biased. Moreover, because its language abilities are based on a statistical model, not on lived human experience, AI chatbots’ effectiveness in nuanced social and cultural contexts is limited (especially for low-resource languages). While AI systems can gain pragmalinguistic knowledge and learn appropriate formulaic sequences through the verbal exchanges in their training data (politeness conventions, for example), they have proven to be much less effective in sociopragmatic engagement, that is, in generating contextually acceptable speech. The practical and ethical challenges of AI use necessitate the development of critical AI literacy, providing for both learners and teachers a clear understanding of the affordances but also of the limitations of AI systems for language learning.

Bio: Robert Godwin-Jones, Ph.D., is Professor in the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). At VCU he has served as Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages, Director of the Instructional Development Center (Office of Information Technology), and Director of the English Language Program (Office of International Education). He has served as a guest lecturer at universities in China, France, Germany, Vietnam, and India. His research is principally in applied linguistics, in the areas of language learning and technology and intercultural communication. He has published over 100 articles and book chapters, regularly presents at international conferences, and writes a column for the journal Language Learning & Technology on emerging technologies.