Linguistic Analysis of Human- and AI-Created Content in Academic Discourse

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI), with the progress of technology, has impacted various fields of communication, including text generation. Therefore, differentiating between human-created and AI-generated content has become a game-changer in determining the authorship in such realms as education, journalism, and content development, as both human and AI forms of communication share similarities in conveying information and following grammar rules.

This research highlights linguistic tools to distinguish human-created and AI-generated English texts, specifically in the context of EFL proficiency assessment, and explores linguistic markers and methodologies to gain understanding of AI's impact on written communication.

The research methodology is based on a mixed approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. Qualitative analysis identifies distinctive linguistic markers differentiating human and AI discourse, and quantitative analysis addresses sentence length, vocabulary diversity, frequency, and syntactic complexity.

This research findings showcase distinctive features differentiating between human and AI-generated texts: AI content may exhibit repetition on different syntactic levels, AI-characteristic vocabulary, repetitive transitions, inappropriate style, inconsistent tone, a lack of coherence, disparity with context, inaccurate information, and low-quality referencing.

As AI is rapidly advancing, further applications are seen in detecting AI-generated text in various domains, such as language learning and teaching, fact-checking, pursuing responsible communication, ethical use of AI content, academic integrity and respecting intellectual property rights.

Further research can explore how linguistic markers evolve with the development of AI language models. Distinguishing between human and AI-generated texts fosters creativity and academic integrity. The research highlights linguistic markers and methodologies, understanding AI's impact on written communication.