From linguistic imperialism to algorithmic dominance: psychological implications of language hegemony in the age of digital intelligence

This article examines how language hegemony is being reconfigured in the age of digital intelligence and its psychological implications for language users, particularly regarding confidence, anxiety, and willingness to communicate. While research on linguistic imperialism has shown how dominant languages consolidate power through history, institutions, and ideology, less attention has been paid to how digital infrastructures reproduce linguistic inequality and shape speakers' confidence, perceived legitimacy, and communicative behaviour. The article argues that language hegemony increasingly operates through algorithmic dominance, reinforced by unequal data representation, platform visibility, uneven AI performance, and the naturalisation of dominant languages as default media of global communication. It proposes a four-dimensional framework of data dominance, platform dominance, model dominance, and ideological dominance. This framework suggests that language inequality in the age of digital intelligence is not only structurally reproduced but also psychologically consequential, influencing language anxiety, communicative confidence, willingness to communicate, and perceptions of linguistic adequacy. The article thus extends debates on linguistic imperialism into the era of platform governance and generative AI, while calling for greater attention to multilingual justice, digital inequality, the psychology of language technology, and speakers' strategies of adaptation and resistance.