Masakhane-Afrisenti at SemEval-2023 Task 12: Sentiment Analysis using Afro-centric Language Models and Adapters for Low-resource African Languages

In this paper, we describe our submission for the AfriSenti-SemEval Shared Task 12 of SemEval-2023. The task aims to perform monolingual sentiment classification (sub-task A) for 12 African languages, multilingual sentiment classification (sub-task B), and zero-shot sentiment classification (task C). For sub-task A, we conducted experiments using classical machine learning classifiers, Afro-centric language models, and language-specific models. For task B, we fine-tuned multilingual pre-trained language models that support many of the languages in the task. For task C, we made use of a parameter-efficient Adapter approach that leverages monolingual texts in the target language for effective zero-shot transfer. Our findings suggest that using pre-trained Afrocentric language models improves performance for low-resource African languages. We also ran experiments using adapters for zero-shot tasks, and the results suggest that we can obtain promising results by using adapters with limited resources.