Lessons in linguistics with ChatGPT

Metapragmatics, metacommunication, metadiscourse and metalanguage in human-AI interactions

Bibliographic Data

ID4358315
AuthorsMarta Dynel (0000-0003-4647-946X, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume93
Pages107-124
Publication date2023-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage & Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0271-5309 • E-ISSN: 1873-3395
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.langcom.2023.09.002
OpenAlexW4387337433
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited36

This paper discusses metalanguage, metadiscourse, metacommunication and metapragmatics testifying to users' conscious awareness enacted in human-AI interactions, based on a corpus of posts sent to Reddit's r/ChatGPT. The emphasis falls on users' foci of attention as they perform linguistic tests on ChatGPT and on how the "meta" practices manifest themselves interactionally on the selected subreddit, where human-AI interactions are showcased for entertainment purposes. The findings suggest that engaging with AI reflects and, potentially, enhances language users' metalinguistic, metadiscursive, metacommunicative and metapragmatic awareness. This awareness is mirrored in ChatGPT's output, indicative of its previous human-assisted training. Additionally, this investigation demonstrates that, when acknowledged as one subject of study, the four "meta" concepts are intricately intertwined as they may co-occur and overlap

Applied linguistics · Entertainment · Linguistics · Metadiscourse · Metalanguage · Metalinguistics · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Subject (documents · Teaching method · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Philosophy · Psychology · Text Readability and Simplification · Topic Modeling

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