Reframing L2 Academic Writer Identity with GenAI: The Emergence of a Technology-Mediated Self

Abstract This study investigates how second language (L2) academic writers reconstruct their writer identities through sustained engagement with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools. A total of 32 participants, representing a wide range of academic positions from early-stage graduate students to senior faculty, took part in an anonymous online survey and written interviews. Participants came from diverse disciplinary backgrounds including applied linguistics, English language teaching (ELT), or TESOL, educational psychology, social sciences, STEM or other fields. Nearly all participants wrote in English, either exclusively or alongside another language. For L2 academic writers, GenAI presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in relation to linguistic confidence and pressures to conform to conventional academic norms. To explore this, drawing on Clark and Ivanič’s (1997. The Politics of Writing . London: Routledge) multidimensional framework of writer identity, this qualitative study employs an abductive analytic approach to examine how participants construct, negotiate, and express their identities when engaging with GenAI. Findings show that writers negotiate agency, voice, ethics, and affect, giving rise to a mediational fourth self (i.e., technology-mediated self) in which authorship becomes collaborative, distributed, and ethically reflective. These findings could reframe existing theories of writer identity by demonstrating how technology shapes the ongoing reconstruction of identity across disciplinary and linguistic contexts.