Voice and Ownership in AI-Assisted L2 Writing
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has unsettled a long-standing premise of second language (L2) writing research: that the language through which a writer’s voice is realised originates with the learner. Voice (what a text conveys about its writer) and psychological ownership (whether writers feel the text is theirs) capture different aspects of a writer’s relationship to a text, yet have been theorised separately and rarely examined together. Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, this study operationalised voice and ownership together in one sample of Saudi EFL undergraduates, most in their first year and new to AI, a population rarely examined in identity-focused research on AI-assisted writing. A questionnaire was completed by 178 students; 17 were interviewed using maximum variation sampling. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics and reflexive thematic analysis. AI use was assistance-oriented rather than generative, supportive use exceeding full-text generation ( d = 0.86). Perceived voice was near the midpoint while ownership fell significantly below it; the two were strongly related ( r = .608) yet not redundant. Supportive use was the strongest predictor of both perceptions, whereas generative use predicted ownership but not voice, and proficiency made a small, tentative contribution to voice only. Interviews showed ownership to be a graded judgement turning on transformation and accountability, and voice to rest on recognisability and level-match; full-text generation occupied the authorship boundary. These findings suggest pedagogy and assessment should focus less on whether AI is present than on whether learners understand, transform, and authorise its contribution.