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LLMs struggle to link figurative language and cultural knowledge via fine-tuning

A new research paper investigates how large language models (LLMs) handle figurative and cultural knowledge, exploring whether fine-tuning on specific cultural data improves their understanding of figurative language. The study used four models—ALLaM-7B, Fanar-1-9B, Qwen3-8B, and Llama-3.1-8B—and six Arabic datasets. Results showed that fine-tuning on poetry enhanced idiom comprehension, but cultural fine-tuning decreased proverb interpretation accuracy. The research suggests that while LLMs can adapt to figurative content, the relationship between culture and figurative language is complex and not easily captured through fine-tuning alone. AI

IMPACT Suggests limitations in current LLM fine-tuning methods for capturing nuanced cultural and figurative language understanding.

RANK_REASON The cluster contains an academic paper detailing research findings on LLM capabilities. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]

Read on arXiv cs.CL →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

LLMs struggle to link figurative language and cultural knowledge via fine-tuning

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The cluster contains an academic paper detailing research findings on LLM capabilities. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. arXiv cs.CL TIER_1 English(EN) · Mena Attia, Mona Diab, Thamar Solorio ·

    Figurative and Cultural Knowledge in LLMs: Investigating Cross-Domain Transfer through Fine-Tuning

    arXiv:2608.18361v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Figurative language is deeply culturally embedded; fluent use requires not just linguistic competence but cultural immersion. We ask whether LLMs can learn this link: does fine-tuning on cultural data improve figurative language und…