Extracting Lexical Features from Dialects via Interpretable Dialect Classifiers

Code

• github.com/ruoyuxie/interpretable_dialect_classifier
  OfficialIn papernone★ 7

Abstract

Identifying linguistic differences between dialects of a language often requires expert knowledge and meticulous human analysis. This is largely due to the complexity and nuance involved in studying various dialects. We present a novel approach to extract distinguishing lexical features of dialects by utilizing interpretable dialect classifiers, even in the absence of human experts. We explore both post-hoc and intrinsic approaches to interpretability, conduct experiments on Mandarin, Italian, and Low Saxon, and experimentally demonstrate that our method successfully identifies key language-specific lexical features that contribute to dialectal variations.

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