Vol. 16, Issue 1, Jul-Dec 2023

Page: 24-36

Ethical Language and Artificial Intelligence Texts: A Critical Discourse Analysis of English Constructs

Barakat Naeem Algam, Prof. Dr. Abdulkarim Fadhil Jameel

Received Date: 2025-01-09

Accepted Date: 2025-02-11

Published Date: 2025-02-21

This study addresses the intersection of ethical and artificial intelligence (AI) discourse through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and explores the ways in which discourse constructs influence ethical considerations in human-authored and AI-authored text. With governance, policymaking, and corporate communications increasingly being determined with the use of AI, the ethical impacts of AI-authored text need to be scrutinized. This research puts qualitative CDA and corpus-based quantification of corpus data into synergy for measuring linguistic trends, rhetorical devices, and discourse ideology of discourse on AI ethics. The study draws on the discourse analysis model of Fairclough, Van Dijk's approach of sociocognition, and Halliday's systemic functional linguistics, and also on computational text analysis, for identifying recurring trends and rhetorical devices. Findings reveal text composed of AI relying on strategic ambiguity, nominalization, and hedging, deflected from liability and concretized hegemonic corporate ethical narratives. Ethic discourse on policymaking on AI remains uncommitting, reproducing Western-centered frameworks. The research suggests higher levels of linguistic clarity and legally binding wording requirements for AI ethics. This research contributes value towards discourse research, artificial intelligence ethics, and computational linguistics and provides the foundation for future multidisciplinary research into the linguistic and ethical aspects of artificial intelligence communication.

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