A Study on Linguistic Clichés in Reflective Essays by Highly AI-Dependent College Writers

What Makes Literary Quotes Stand Out? A Multidimensional Analysis of Literary Creativity

The Flaw of Perfection: How University Professors Identify the Inauthentic Voice of AI

Characterization and Mechanisms of Lexical Complexity in AI-Generated Texts: A Comparative Corpus-Based Study

: Based on a corpus-based methodology, this study analyzes the intrinsic reasons for the high level of lexical complexity observed in Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC). The research compares 24 English argumentative essays written by AI with 24 second-language (L2) learner essays reaching the IELTS Writing Task 2 Band 7 level. Under controlled conditions of identical genre and topic, the study performs quantitative statistics across three dimensions: lexical sophistication, semantic abstraction, and information density. Statistical results indicate that the frequency of advanced vocabulary in AI texts is significantly higher, approximately 2.3 times that of human texts. The proportion of abstract nouns reached 9.14%, far exceeding the 3.32% found in human texts, suggesting that AI expressions tend toward nominalization and conceptualization. Regarding overall information organization, the lexical density of AI texts was 69.9%, also surpassing the 60.3% of human texts, reflecting a stronger tendency for information condensation and phrasal structures. The analysis points out that the complexity of AI text primarily stems from its mechanism of selecting vocabulary based on probability distributions. This mechanism favors longer words, abstract nouns, and words with high semantic content, thereby forming a highly compact linguistic surface. Such complexity is essentially a formal feature at the statistical level and is not entirely equivalent to the proficiency levels corresponding to human L2 acquisition. These findings provide empirical references for AI text identification, the refinement of writing evaluation standards, and L2 writing pedagogy.

L2 Chinese Grammatical Acquisition and Processing: A Substantive and Methodological Review

This study presents a systematic review of 92 empirical studies on Chinese as a second language (CSL) in grammatical processing and development, synthesizing their substantive foci and methodological characteristics. The results reveal consistent scholarly attention to cross‐linguistic topics, with less focus on features that are distinctively salient in Chinese. Methodologically, studies most commonly relied on quantitative approaches and judgment tasks, while the use of online measures emerged only after 2014. We also identified several persistent challenges, including an overreliance on English‐speaking university students as participants, inconsistent proficiency assessment practices across studies, and limitations in transparent data reporting. In light of these limitations, we call for the adoption of a broader range of methodological tools, the inclusion of more diverse participants, varied research designs, and statistical techniques to enhance the rigor of CSL research and its contribution to the broader SLA field.

Beyond Linguistic Errors: Communicative Variation in Malaysian ESL Undergraduate Writing

This study qualitatively analyses recurrent patterns of linguistic errors and communicative writing tendencies of Malaysian ESL (English for Second Language) undergraduates by examining two functional composition tasks: an informal email and an opinion essay. While previous studies on ESL writing have often focused on grammatical mistakes, surface language deficiencies, or overall competence issues, the present study adopts an in-depth exploration of recurring errors in ESL writing by examining not only the errors but also the differing communicative approaches reflected in learners’ written responses. Ten sets of handwritten scripts containing twenty written responses were purposively selected from a larger pool of assessment scripts. The assessment was classroom-administered without allowance for digital access or AI-based writing aids, providing a more authentic reflection of learners’ freer and independent writing. This study drew on the theories of Error Analysis (Corder, 1967), the Surface Strategy Taxonomy (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982), and communicative competence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Hyland, 2007). The major error patterns identified at the surface level of the students’ written responses included sentence construction, verbs, lexis, organisation, and overall communicative effectiveness. Some persistent errors were identified but, more importantly, there was considerable variation as to how the students sought to write communicatively for different audiences using varying strategies for organising and elaborating their ideas and being socially aware in their writing. Students, even at the same level of proficiency, were found to write in different ways. An evaluation of ESL writing solely in terms of grammatical accuracy is, therefore, incomplete, as students of similar levels of proficiency may employ different strategies in their attempt to communicate meaningfully in writing. The study provides insights into how ESL writing cannot be comprehensively assessed based on linguistic fluency and grammatical precision alone. Hence, the study emphasises the multidimensional nature of ESL students’ writing development, highlighting the rationale for pedagogical approaches recognising both their linguistic competence and communicative potential.

Differential Effects of Generative AI Editing on the Language Quality of Essays across Proficiency Levels