GENERATIVE AI TOOLS AND EMPOWERMENT IN L2 ACADEMIC WRITING

The emergence of Generative Artificial (GenAI) tools has disrupted existing academic writing processes within higher education (HE). HE institutions worldwide have drafted guidelines in response. Much of the guidance focuses on the threats they pose to academic integrity and appropriate use. At the same time, instructors have their stances on GenAI use, which are translated into course-level policies, assessment guidance, and conversations with their students. L2 learners can feel confused and disempowered by the conflicting guidance they receive and restrictions on GenAI use. This study explores how L2 learners make sense of the confusing environment they find themselves in, whether they perceive GenAI tools as empowering or disempowering, and, importantly, whether they can exercise agency as they engage with GenAI tools in academic writing. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, during which the participants were presented with 11 scenarios representing various instructors' GenAI policies. The participants were twenty-one full-time postgraduate students from Mainland China studying in a one-year Master of Education program at a Hong Kong university within the first month of their program. The time point was chosen as the transition to HE can be challenging, and often when conceptions about their institutions, instructors, and academic selves are formed. The study provides implications for how L2 writers can be empowered to engage with GenAI critically, develop a critical awareness of their own digital practices, assert their own agency in the writing process. It also suggests L2 learner agency can be facilitated in the complex and fluid GenAI landscape.