A Critical Review of Exploring AI in Applied Linguistics

BackgroundGenerative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has offered applied linguistics scholars a wealth of innovative resources, becoming widely used in language teaching, learning, testing, and research in recent years.The rise of ChatGPT has further brought GenAI into the public spotlight, with its advanced text and speech generation capabilities facilitating language skills development and gaining broad acceptance among language learners.The book Exploring AI in Applied Linguistics offers a comprehensive analysis of the potential and challenges posed by AI and GenAI (e.g., ChatGPT) in advancing applied linguistics.It primarily covers the evolution of AI, the capabilities of GenAI in assessment, the challenges AI presents to linguistic research and language education, and highlights directions for future GenAI research.The book comprises 15 chapters divided into four parts, and the present review evaluates each part individually and then engages critically with the findings presented in each part.