Introduction

Languages have always changed – shaped by contact, time, and the tools people use to communicate. My research follows that thread: from the existence of variation and long-term grammatical shifts across languages to the ways AI and digital technologies are emerging as new drivers of change. 

I completed my PhD at the University of Freiburg in 2018, under the supervision of Christian Mair, as part of the “Frequency Effects in Language” research training group. My dissertation explored grammatical obsolescence. Since 2019, I have been an assistant professor at the Faculty of Languages, University of Gdańsk. Additionally, I have conducted research at the University of Oslo (2022), the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (2023), and was a visiting professor at the University of Regensburg (2024).

My research focuses on:

• Variation and change in language: This includes examining grammatical obsolescence, a central theme of my PhD research, and ongoing studies on non-verbal plural number agreement from various perspectives.
• The impact of new technologies on language use: I study how artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as Grammarly and ChatGPT, influence language, particularly sentence structure and style and what the textual characteristics of AI tools tell us about how these tools use language.
• Cross-linguistic studies of large-scale linguistic trends: I compare linguistic phenomena across languages, exploring the variation and commonalities in grammar, such as plural number agreement, across diverse linguistic systems.

Publication list

Preiss, Judita & Karolina Rudnicka. 2026. Language models and the detection of changing patterns of grammatical use: performance, error patterns, and linguistic insights. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (DSH). https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqag121.

Rudnicka, K. forthcoming. The language(s) of artificial intelligence. A guide to the new linguistic reality. In Piotr Stepnowski (ed.), A world under construction: Gdańsk scholars on quantum physics and on artificial intelligence. University of Gdańsk Publishing House.

Rudnicka, K. & J. R. E. Leimgruber. 2026. ‘Only fools don’t change their mind(s)’ – plural non-verbal concord and free variation across selected World Englishes. English World-Wide (EWW). https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eww.25060.rud; DO...

Rudnicka, Karolina & Thomas S. Juzek. 2026 (preprint). Beyond ‘AI Language’: The case for the idiolectal nature of LLM output. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.06589

Rudnicka, K. 2025. Each AI chatbot has its own, distinctive writing style—just as humans do. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chatgpt-and-gemini-ai-have-un.... (2025, July 9; ed. Madhusree Mukerjee).

Rudnicka, K. & R. J. Whitt. 2025. When people overload the/their stomach(s): Non-verbal plural number agreement and generic reference in early and late modern medical discourse. In Gavin Brookes, Niall Curry, Tony McEnery, Emma Putland (eds.), Historical Medical Discourse: Corpus Linguistic Perspectives [Routledge Advances in Corpus Linguistics], 137–153. New York and London: Routledge.

Rudnicka, K. preprint. The language of AI tools as idiolects – thus comparable to other idiolects. DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/7qwzu_v1

Rudnicka, K. & A. Klégr. 2024. Non-Verbal Plural Number Agreement in the Cross-Linguistic Context: Combining Corpus Findings with Two Kinds of Acceptability Rating Results for English, German, Polish, and Czech. In H. Hasselgård & S. Oksefjell Ebeling (eds.), English in Contrast: Corpus-based Approaches [special issue], Nordic Journal of English Studies, 92-119. DOI: 10.35360/njes.v23i2.39166 

Rudnicka, K. 2024. Non-verbal plural number agreement – a pilot study comparing English and German using Oslo Multilingual Corpus data. Slovo a slovesnost 85(1): 27–54. DOI: 10.58756/s1118554

Rudnicka, K. 2023. Can Grammarly and ChatGPT accelerate language change? AI-powered technologies and their impact on the English language: wordiness vs. conciseness. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 71, 205–214. ISSN 1135-5948; DOI: 10.26342/2023-71-16

Rudnicka, K., A. Klégr. 2023. Non-verbal plural number agreement. Between the distributive plural and singular: blocking factors and free variation. In Free Variation in Grammar. Empirical and theoretical approaches, Kristin Kopf & Thilo Weber (eds.), 74-98.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.234.04rud

Rudnicka, K. 2021. The “negative end” of change in grammar: terminology, concepts and causes. Linguistics Vanguard 7 (1), 20200091: 1-9. DOI: 10.1515/lingvan-2020-0091

Rudnicka, K. 2021. In order that – a data-driven study of symptoms and causes of obsolescence. Linguistics Vanguard 7 (1), 20200092: 1-11. DOI: 10.1515/lingvan-2020-0092

Rudnicka, K. 2021. So-adj-a construction as a case of obsolescence in progress. In Lost in Change: Causes and processes in the loss of grammatical elements and constructions, Svenja Kranich & Tine Breban (eds.), 51-73. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.218.02rud

Rudnicka, K. 2019. The Statistics of Obsolescence: Purpose Subordinators in Late Modern English. NIHIN Studies. Freiburg: Rombach. DOI: 10.6094/978-3-928969-75-8

Rudnicka, K. 2019. Lose one's life and lose one's job with singular they: two constructions, two regional varieties, many practical aspects of working with mega-corpora. Forum Filologiczne Ateneum 1 (8): 149-162. DOI: 10.36575/2353-2912/1(8)2020.149

Rudnicka, K. 2018. Variation of sentence length across time and genre: influence on the syntactic usage in English. In Diachronic Corpora, Genre, and Language Change, Richard Jason Whitt (ed.), 219–240. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/scl.85.10rud

Scientific societies

Since 01.2026 – Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE)

2023 - 2024 – Sociedad Española para el Procesamiento de Lenguaje Natural (SEPLN)

Since 03.2021 – International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE)

Outreach

07.2026 Quoted as an expert on AI-generated language in “The Economist” following an interview on stylistic variation in large language models. Article: "How to spot AI writing" https://www.economist.com/culture/2026/07/30/how-to-spot-ai-writing?gift...

07.2025 – Author of a feature article in Scientific American on the distinct writing styles of ChatGPT and Gemini AI (ChatGPT and Gemini AIs Have Uniquely Different Writing Styles | Scientific American). The piece received wide international media coverage, with mentions in Brazil (SuperInteressante), Italy (Le Scienze), China (Sciencenet), Turkey, Czechia, and others, as well as coverage across Polish national media.

11.2025 – Contributed expert statements to a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, on AI-generated prose and its divergence from human writing (How AI-generated prose diverges from human writing and why it matters).

01.2026 – Expert commentary for Rzeczpospolita (one of Poland’s leading national dailies) on electronic vs. print dictionaries.

02.2026 – Invited guest on OFF Czarek (TOK FM, one of Poland’s major public radio stations), discussing the linguistic profile of AI language models.

Conference presentations & guest lectures

(current year and last three years)

2026

forthcoming (08.2026) – conference presentation at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE59), Osnabrück University, Germany

forthcoming (07.2026) – conference presentation at the 11th Biennial  International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE 11), University of Klagenfurt, Austria

06.2026 – guest lecture “The language of AI-based tools as idiolects” at the Linguistisches Kolloquium, Faculty of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Regensburg, Germany

06.2026 - conference presentation “Competing constructions and higher-order processes: in spite of and despite in Present-Day English”, ARiEL (Advancing Research in English Linguistics), Chair of English Linguistics, University of Regensburg, Germany

06.2026 – workshop presentation “Multilingual linguistic landscape of thezoological gardens of Warsaw and Berlin: signage and representation”,  University of Gdańsk (online)

05.2026 – guest lecture “Beyond ‘AI Language’: The case for treating LLM output as idiolects”, Artificial intelligence in language analysis and language didactics research group, University of Oslo, Norway

04.2026 – guest lecture “Methodological insights from cross-linguistic and cross-varietal studies: Acceptability ratings and preference judgment tasks in research on agreement”, Brown-bag Research Breakfast, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

2025

09.2025 – conference presentation “Non-Verbal Plural Number Agreement: A Multi-Perspective Approach”, 8th Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE 8), University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

07.2025 – conference presentation “The language of AI tools as idiolects”, Corpus linguistics 2040: Which data, which methods, which models? (FutureCorp2040), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache (IDS), Mannheim, Germany

06.2025 – conference presentation “AI vs. human writing: a corpus-based comparative study of lexical and grammatical features”, 46th International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME46), University of Vilnius, Lithuania

06.2025 – conference presentation (joint work with Richard Jason Whitt, University of Nottingham) “When People Overload Their Stomach(s): Non-verbal Plural Number Agreement in Early and Late Modern Medical Discourse”, 46th International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME46), University of Vilnius, Lithuania

01.2025 – guest lecture “Can AI-powered tools like Grammarly and ChatGPT speed up language change? Their impact on English: wordiness vs. conciseness” Kahramanmaraş İstiklal University, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey

01.2025 – guest lecture “Moving away from a close-up to see a bigger picture: a practical example from a doctoral thesis” Kahramanmaraş İstiklal University, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey

2024

10.2024 – guest lecture “AI-powered language technologies and variation in African Englishes”, Chair of English Linguistics, University of Regensburg, Germany

10.2024 – guest lecture “Non-verbal plural number agreement in the cross-linguistic context: Combining corpus findings with two kinds of acceptability rating results for English, German, Czech, and Polish”, Linguistisches Kolloquium, Faculty of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Regensburg, Germany

10.2024 – guest lecture “Moving away from a close-up to see a bigger picture: a practical example from a doctoral thesis”, Promotionskolleg der Philosophischen Fakultäten (Doctoral School), University of Regensburg, Germany

07.2024 – conference panel moderation: “Humanities in the time of artificial intelligence: opportunities and threats”,  Young Science Congress, University of Gdańsk, Poland

07.2024 – conference presentation “AI-powered technologies and their influence on language change and variation”, Young Science Congress, University of Gdańsk, Poland

06.2024 – guest lecture “Moving away from a close-up to see a bigger picture: a practical example from a doctoral thesis”, Centro de Estudios Avanzados (Doctoral School), University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

06.2024 – conference presentation (joint work with Aleš Klégr, Charles University in Prague), “Non-verbal plural number agreement in the cross-linguistic context: Combining corpus findings with two kinds of acceptability rating results for English, German, Czech, and Polish”, VALP6 Conference (Variation and Language Processing 6), University of Vigo, Spain

03.2024 – conference presentation “AI-powered language technologies and variation in African Englishes”, CLAREP 2024 conference (Doing research in African Linguistics: Existing Challenges and the way forward), Benin City, Nigeria (online)

2023

10.2023 – keynote conference presentation “AI-powered technologies and their impact on the English language: wordiness vs conciseness”, Second International Forum on Computing and Information Technology Trends (IFCITT-2023), Garmyan University, Iraq (online)

10.2023 – guest lecture “Grammatical items on the way out - constructional competition and Beyond”, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

09.2023 – conference presentation “Can Grammarly and ChatGPT accelerate language change? AI-powered technologies and their impact on the English language: wordiness vs. conciseness”, 39th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Natural Language Processing (SEPLN2023), Jaén, Spain

07.2023 – guest lecture “Can Grammarly and ChatGPT accelerate language change? AI-powered technologies and their impact on the English language: wordiness vs. conciseness”, Digital Humanities Colloquium of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), Potchefstroom, South Africa (online)

05.2023 – guest lecture “Moving away from a close-up to see a bigger picture: a practical example from a doctoral thesis”, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

05.2023 –  conference presentation “Only fools don’t change their mind(s) - plural numerical concord and free variation across selected World Englishes”, 44th annual conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME44), North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

05.2023 – conference presentation “Non-verbal plural number concord - a pilot study comparing English and German”, 44th annual conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME44), North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa