Lingua Technica: Journal of Digital Literary Studies
Vol. 2 No. 2 (2026): Meta-literature: between authorship and machine-mediated literary creativity

When the machine writes back: generative AI, literary agency, and the reconfiguration of digital authorship

Aisultanova Karlygash Abdukalykowna (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University)
Syaiful Islam (University of Nurul Jadid)



Article Info

Publish Date
31 Jul 2026

Abstract

Background: Generative artificial intelligence has destabilized conventional literary authorship by separating textual production from ownership, responsibility, and institutional recognition across digital publishing environments. Objective: This study examines how human writers, generative systems, editors, publishers, platforms, and cultural institutions redistribute literary agency, attribution, disclosure, and legitimacy. Method: Using a qualitative comparative corpus design, this study analyzed 42 public documents published between 2021 and 11 July 2026, comprising 15 primary, 13 secondary, and 14 contextual sources through distributed-authorship mapping, workflow-chain analysis, and paratextual governance analysis. Results: Human actors retained legal, editorial, and ethical primacy, although machines increasingly occupied visible roles in drafting, stylistic production, and symbolic co-authorship. Literary agency operated across prompting, generation, selection, revision, arrangement, performance, and publication rather than residing exclusively in sentence production. Disclosure functioned constitutively, legitimizing experimentation in some contexts while enabling suspicion, restriction, or prohibition in others. Implication: Digital authorship should therefore be evaluated as a governed attribution network in which distributed creativity remains asymmetrical because accountability continues to rest with identifiable human and institutional actors. Novelty: This study integrates literary texts, creator accounts, publisher paratexts, media reception, platform rules, and policy documents within one auditable framework connecting attribution, workflow, and governance across contemporary transnational literary ecosystems.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

lingtech

Publisher

Subject

Arts Humanities Computer Science & IT Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

Description

This journal covers a wide range of fields, including digital literature, e-poetry, and the relationship between language, literature, and technology in diverse ...