Global English, Generative AI, and the Standardisation of Academic Communication: Between Accessibility and Deglobalisation

Abstract

The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence into academic and professional communication is accelerating the standardisation of English-language discourse across educational and cultural contexts. While digital communication has historically supported linguistic accessibility and international collaboration, AI-assisted writing introduces new tensions between globalisation and deglobalisation in communication practices. This paper explores how AI-generated academic English contributes simultaneously to the expansion of global communicative norms and to the gradual erosion of linguistic, stylistic, and cultural diversity.

Drawing on perspectives from communication studies, digital discourse analysis, and language globalisation, the paper employs a qualitative critical discourse analysis combined with an exploratory pedagogical research approach. The study is based on a corpus consisting of AI-assisted student assignments, academic writing exercises, professional communication tasks, and reflective responses collected from undergraduate students enrolled in English-language communication and writing courses. In addition, the research incorporates data from a small-scale exploratory questionnaire investigating students’ perceptions of generative AI in academic writing, with particular attention to perceived usefulness, linguistic confidence, authenticity, creativity, and dependence on AI-generated structures.

The analysis focuses on recurrent rhetorical and linguistic patterns identified in AI-assisted student writing, including lexical predictability, formulaic argument structures, standardised academic tone, and the gradual reduction of culturally specific forms of expression. Particular attention is given to the emergence of “safe” communication strategies characterised by clarity, coherence, and grammatical correctness, but often lacking rhetorical individuality or stylistic nuance.

The paper argues that although AI tools democratise access to academic English and reduce linguistic anxiety for non-native speakers, they may also reinforce dominant Anglo-American rhetorical conventions and reshape the criteria through which academic writing is evaluated. Consequently, educators increasingly shift their attention from grammatical accuracy toward questions of authenticity, originality, critical positioning, and communicative intention.

The paper ultimately proposes a critical communication framework for understanding AI-assisted writing as a negotiation between efficiency, visibility, authenticity, and cultural specificity in contemporary higher education.