I’m happy to share that we have submitted our paper, “cantnlp@DravidianLangTech 2026: Organic Domain Adaptation Improves Multi-Class Hope Speech Detection in Tulu,” to the Sixth Workshop on Speech and Language Technologies for Dravidian Languages (DravidianLangTech-2026), which is co-located with ACL 2026 in San Diego. ACL 2026 is scheduled for July 2 to July 7, 2026, with workshops on July 3 and 4.

What the shared task is about

Our submission is part of the Hope Speech Detection shared task at DravidianLangTech-2026. The task focuses on identifying hopeful, encouraging, and supportive language in social media text, with a particular emphasis on code-mixed Tulu. That makes it both socially meaningful and technically challenging, especially because Tulu remains a low-resource language in NLP.

What our paper explores

Our paper studies how organic domain adaptation can improve multi-class hope speech detection in Tulu. In low-resource settings, even small domain mismatches can hurt performance, and code-mixed data adds another layer of difficulty. This project looks at how better adaptation strategies can help models generalize more effectively in that setting.

Why this matters

I find this work exciting because it sits at the intersection of low-resource NLP, code-mixed language processing, and socially useful language technology. Hope speech detection is not just a classification problem. It also connects to broader questions about how NLP systems can support healthier online spaces and extend research attention to languages that are often underrepresented.

Acknowledgments

I’m the first author of this submission, and I’m very grateful to my co-author and mentor, Dr. Sidney Wong. His guidance and support were central to both the research process and the writing of the paper.

What comes next

The paper was submitted by the March 5, 2026 shared-task paper deadline, so it is now under review. I’m looking forward to seeing the outcome and, hopefully, sharing more about the project in the months ahead. No matter what happens, this has already been a valuable experience in working on Tulu NLP and contributing to research on Dravidian languages.

Tag: Tulu

We Submitted Our ACL 2026 DravidianLangTech Paper on Hope Speech Detection in Tulu