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Cited by 3Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identitylinguistics and terminology studiesNatural Language Processing Techniques

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Exploring the Structure of AI-Induced Language Change in Scientific English

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Galpin, Riley, Anderson, Bryce, Juzek, Tom S·2025·The International FLAIRS Conference Proceedings
DOI 10.32473/flairs.38.1.138958
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Abstract

Scientific English has undergone rapid and unprecedented changes in recent years, with words such as "delve," "intricate," and "crucial" showing significant spikes in frequency since around 2022. These changes are widely attributed to the growing influence of Large Language Models like ChatGPT in the discourse surrounding bias and misalignment. However, apart from changes in frequency, the exact structure of these linguistic shifts has remained unclear. The present study addresses this and investigates whether these changes involve the replacement of synonyms by suddenly 'spiking words,' for example, "crucial" replacing "essential" and "key," or whether they reflect broader semantic and pragmatic qualifications. To further investigate structural changes, we include part of speech tagging in our analysis to quantify linguistic shifts over grammatical categories and differentiate between word forms, like "potential" as a noun vs. as an adjective. We systematically analyze synonym groups for widely discussed 'spiking words' based on frequency trends in scientific abstracts from PubMed. We find that entire semantic clusters often shift together, with most or all words in a group increasing in usage. This pattern suggests that changes induced by Large Language Models are primarily semantic and pragmatic rather than purely lexical. Notably, the adjective "important" shows a significant decline, which prompted us to systematically analyze decreasing lexical items. Our analysis of collapsing words reveals a more complex picture, which is consistent with organic language change and contrasts with the patterns of the abrupt spikes. These insights into the structure of language change contribute to our understanding of how language technology continues to shape human language.

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CC-BY-NC · From the PDF
Figure 2 An illustration of the procedure used to systematically identify the synonyms of the focal words that are discussed in the literature as being overused by AI; figure created with Canva.
Figure 2 An illustration of the procedure used to systematically identify the synonyms of the focal words that are discussed in the literature as being overused by AI; figure created with Canva.CC-BY-NC · From the PDF
Figure 3 The distribution of how, for any given focal word, its four to five synonyms change in frequency between 2020 and 2024 (also see Table 1 and our GitHub repository).
Figure 3 The distribution of how, for any given focal word, its four to five synonyms change in frequency between 2020 and 2024 (also see Table 1 and our GitHub repository).CC-BY-NC · From the PDF
Figure 4 Trends in occurrences per million words for the 13 focal words in PubMed abstracts that displayed the largest decrease in usage between 2020 and 2024.
Figure 4 Trends in occurrences per million words for the 13 focal words in PubMed abstracts that displayed the largest decrease in usage between 2020 and 2024.CC-BY-NC · From the PDF

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Metadata

Authors
Galpin, R., Anderson, B., & Juzek, T. S.
Affiliations
Florida State University (US)
ORCID
Venue
The International FLAIRS Conference Proceedings
Publisher
University of Florida George A Smathers Libraries
Published
2025-05-14
Volume
38
ISSN
  • 2334-0754 (ISSN-L)
  • 2334-0762
DOI
10.32473/flairs.38.1.138958
OpenAlex
W4410397935
Cited by
3
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 3
FWCI
69.84
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Proceedings of the ... International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › linguistics and terminology studies
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Natural Language Processing Techniques
Keywords
scientific English, large language models, ChatGPT, synonym replacement, semantic clusters, part-of-speech tagging, PubMed abstracts

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