Seminar: AI and student feedback: The problem of stance

AI and student feedback: The problem of stance
 

Professor Rodney H. Jones
Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics
University of Reading
 

June 11, 2025 (Wednesday)
12:45 – 14:00
Room 646, Meng Wah Complex, HKU
Chair: Professor George Jiang

Abstract: 
As large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT become increasingly integrated into educational settings, particularly in the provision of formative feedback, a new set of linguistic and ethical challenges emerges. Central among these is the problem of stance—the affective, epistemic, and interpersonal positioning that an AI system takes toward users and their inputs. When a model offers feedback, it inevitably performs a stance through its lexicogrammatical and pragmatic choices. This stance shapes how students interpret the feedback, whether they accept or resist it, and how they position themselves in relation to their imagined evaluators. Building on theories from sociolinguistics and pragmatics, this talk explores how stance is interactionally achieved in student-AI feedback encounters and suggest some ways educators can scaffold student awareness of stance in AI-generated feedback and explore how this awareness can support the development of critical digital literacies and more ethical forms of human–machine collaboration. 

About the speaker: 
Rodney H. Jones is Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading. His research interests include language and digital media, health communication, and language and creativity. His recent books include Understanding Digital Literacies: A practical introduction, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2021) Viral Discourse (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and Introducing Language and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2022). His new book, Innovations and Challenges in Digital Literacies, will soon be published by Routledge. 

~ All are welcome ~
For enquiries, please contact the Office of Research, Faculty of Education at hkchow@hku.hk