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Article published In: Decolonising or Recolonising?: Generative AI through the eyes of applied linguists, language teachers, and learners
Edited by Toni Dobinson, Julian Chen and Carly Steele
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 47:3] 2024
► pp. 366–382

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Meeting standards: (Re)colonial and subversive potential of AI modification

ORCiD logo with link | Curtin University
ORCiD logo with link | Curtin University
ORCiD logo with link | Curtin University
ORCiD logo with link | Curtin University
Published online: 17 December 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.24099.tan
Abstract
AI potential to recolonise language practices by reproducing existing marginalisations in novel ways has already instilled fears of a ‘contemporary dystopia’ (Miras, G., Wilson, A., & Dupouy, M. (2022). Utopie et dystopie hexagonales sur l’accent et la prononciation (du natif) en langues étrangères. Humanités, Didactiques, Recherches, 21, 117–133. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) — a space of cultural and linguistic erasure. Accents represent a distinctive aspect of language practice associated with one’s sociocultural, and ethno-racial characteristics. They account for one’s social identity, status, and proficiency (De Klerk, V. & Bosch, B. (1995). Linguistic stereotypes: nice accent — nice person?. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1995(116), 17–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This makes practices of artificially modifying accents particularly concerning, since they play into the ‘zero’ accent ideology. As a result, any deviation from the norm is marked as abnormal or deficient, and in need of, artificial correction. Using AI accent generators, therefore, has the capacity to further aggravate power inequalities between the linguistically privileged and underprivileged, and to encourage changes in self-representation towards what is perceived as the normative Standard.
Artificial modification of self to match a desired representation is not new, given the long-standing discussions on digital image alterations and their negative relationships to self-perceived attractiveness (Ozimek, P., Lainas, S., Bierhoff, H. W., & Rohmann, E. (2023). How photo editing in social media shapes self-perceived attractiveness and self-esteem via self-objectification and physical appearance comparisons. BMC Psychology, 111, 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This conceptual paper explores the (re)colonial and subversive linguistic potential of AI accent generators through the lens of the social tendency of individuals to strive to meet a given Standard. Using the notion of ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self. In L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P. H. Hutton, Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 16–49). Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), we draw a parallel between self-perceived attractiveness of bodies and accents, to explain how artificial modifications do not straightforwardly support diversities, but instead encourage ‘self-corrections’ in line with those standardized sets of features which seem to promise a ‘better’ socioeconomic and educational standing within neoliberal societies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.AI use for artificial modifications
  • 3.Accent modification and Technologies of the self
  • 4.‘Standardizing’ AI modification
    • 4.1Between subversion and (re)colonisation
  • 5.Implications for educational discourses
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
References (51)
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