ERROR_500@DravidianLangTech2026: Automatic Prompt Style Classification in Telugu Using Transformer-Based Language Models

Mahashweta Manjari Barua, Tasnia Khanam, Nuzha Saifa Rahmat, Shiti Chowdhury, Hasan Murad


Abstract
Recovering writing style prompts in low resource languages has been daunting due to diverse morphology, culturally cognizant language patterns and deficient annotated resources. As previous works have predominantly focused on binary sentiment or single attribute transfer, extensive multi-class style classification in under-resourced languages like Telegu has been vastly underexplored. In this study, we have addressed this chasm through the Telugu Prompt-Style Recovery Shared Task at DravidianLangTech@ACL 2026 (Premjith et al., 2026), framing prompt reconstruction as a nine-class classification problem with Formal, Informal, Optimistic, Pessimistic, Humorous, Serious, Inspiring, Authoritative and Persuasive as prompt styles. We have evaluated three input configurations—Change Style, Original Transcripts and Merged input style—while training three transformer based models-MuRIL, XLM-RoBERTa and IndicBERT v2 under identical conditions. Our most promising model, IndicBERT v2 with partial layer freezing and weighted cross-entropy loss, has obtained a macro-F1 of 0.2987 and accuracy of 0.299. The Change Style configuration has significantly outperformed Original and Merged inputs, indicating that explicit style changes have made tonal and meaning cues more distinctive. These results have showcased the importance of language-specific pretraining and careful input design for style-sensitive NLP in low-resource settings, ultimately securing 1st rank on the shared task.
Anthology ID:
2026.dravidianlangtech-1.37
Volume:
Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Speech, Vision, and Language Technologies for Dravidian Languages
Month:
July
Year:
2026
Address:
Underline (Virtual)
Editors:
Bharathi Raja Chakravarthi, Ruba Priyadharshini, Anand Kumar Madasamy, Sajeetha Thavareesan, Saranya Rajiakodi, Subalalitha Navaneethakrishnan, Dhivya Chinnappa, Balasubramanian Palani, Malliga Subramanian, Kogilavani Shanmugavadivel, Ratnavel Rajalakshmi
Venues:
DravidianLangTech | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
253–257
Language:
URL:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingest-acl-workshops/2026.dravidianlangtech-1.37/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Mahashweta Manjari Barua, Tasnia Khanam, Nuzha Saifa Rahmat, Shiti Chowdhury, and Hasan Murad. 2026. ERROR_500@DravidianLangTech2026: Automatic Prompt Style Classification in Telugu Using Transformer-Based Language Models. In Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Speech, Vision, and Language Technologies for Dravidian Languages, pages 253–257, Underline (Virtual). Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
ERROR_500@DravidianLangTech2026: Automatic Prompt Style Classification in Telugu Using Transformer-Based Language Models (Barua et al., DravidianLangTech 2026)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingest-acl-workshops/2026.dravidianlangtech-1.37.pdf