Academic communication with AI-powered language tools in higher education: From a post-humanist perspective

AI-powered language tools (AILTs) are commonly used by university students, yet there is a limited understanding of how students utilise and perceive these tools in everyday academic communication practice. Employing a post-humanist lens and based on over 1700 open-ended comments from a nationwide student survey, this qualitative study examined students' lived AILT experiences to explicate the impact of AILTs on academic communication in higher education learning and assessment. Thematic analysis of the data shows that students' academic writing is realised by assemblages of distributed spatial and personal linguistic repertoires, underscoring AILT's role in enhancing students' communicative performance and personal language development. AILTs are also conducive to transforming the academic writing process into an additional learning space. Students have developed a new identity as spatially advised learners, enabling them to assert their agency in terms of language development and subject-content knowledge while also holding critical perspectives on the limitations of AI. Furthermore, the findings point to divergent and eclectic student viewpoints on the ethical concerns of AILTs in assessment in the absence of university instructions. The study discusses implications for university policymaking and pedagogy in developing teaching and assessment methods that match students' stances and needs in AI-mediated academic communication.