Digital Mediation and Artificial Intelligence in Language Learning

The expansion of digital technologies in language education has frequently been narrated through the lexicon of innovation, efficiency, and accessibility. Platforms promise adaptive feedback, increased exposure, and opportunities for autonomous practice; applications advertise gamified engagement and accelerated progress. Yet such instrumental approaches remain theoretically insufficient within the mediation-centered perspective articulated in the preceding chapters. Understanding language learning as a socially mediated activity (Vygotsky 1978; Lantolf and Thorne 2006) and recognizing cognition and affect as distributed across interactional systems (Hutchins 1995) positions technology beyond the role of a neutral supplement to pre-existing pedagogy. It becomes an integral component of the learning ecology.