Andry Sophocleous
2026
Sentiment and Stance in EFL Responses to AI-Generated Environmental Content
Andry Sophocleous
Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Ecology, Environment, and Natural Language Processing
Andry Sophocleous
Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Ecology, Environment, and Natural Language Processing
Recent advances in generative AI have enabled the large-scale production of environmental imagery and descriptions, yet questions remain regarding how such content represents emotion, agency, and responsibility. This study examines how human evaluators respond to AI-generated environmental representations, focusing on sentiment, stance, and argumentation as dimensions of qualitative evaluation. Data were collected from 81 multilingual secondary-school EFL learners in Cyprus, who engaged with AI-generated environmental images and accompanying AI-written descriptions through a sequence of structured tasks. Using qualitative discourse analysis informed by sentiment- and stance-oriented frameworks, the study analyses learner-produced texts to identify affective evaluations, moral positioning, and alignment with or challenge to AI-generated discourse. Findings indicate that participants consistently moved beyond surface-level description to articulate emotional engagement, assign responsibility, and critique omissions in AI-generated content, particularly regarding the representation of human-environment relations. The study contributes to research on human-centered AI evaluation by demonstrating the value of sentiment and stance analysis for assessing AI-generated environmental language, and highlights the potential of educational contexts as sites for examining human interpretive responses to automated discourse.