Challenge: Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have offered a strong potential for natural language systems to process informal language.
Approach: They propose to use movie subtitles to evaluate slang in large language models . they find that smaller LLMs finetuned on the dataset achieve comparable performance .
Outcome: The proposed dataset can be used to evaluate LLMs on slang detection and identification of regional and historical sources for interpretive insights.

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How do Language Models Generate Slang: A Systematic Comparison between Human and Machine-Generated Slang Usages (2025.findings-emnlp)

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Challenge: Slang is a commonly used type of informal language that poses a daunting challenge to NLP systems.
Approach: They compare human-attested slang and swiss-generated slurs with machine-generated ones . they find that LLMs have significant knowledge about the creative aspects of sling .
Outcome: The proposed model compares human and machine-generated slang usages to find biases in human perceptions of sling . the results suggest that human-attested slms have significant knowledge about the creative aspects of a language .
SLANG: New Concept Comprehension of Large Language Models (2024.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: Dynamic nature of language limits the adaptability of Large Language Models (LLMs) Traditionally, LLMs are trained on static data, which limits their adaptability .
Approach: They propose a benchmark to integrate novel data and assess LLMs’ ability to comprehend emerging concepts, alongside a causal inference-based approach to enhance LLM comprehension of new phrases and their colloquial context.
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Simple Models for Word Formation in Slang (N18-1)

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Challenge: slang is a popular vocabulary among young people due to its extragrammatical properties and the rise of social media.
Approach: They propose a data-driven approach coupled with linguistic knowledge to develop generative models for three types of extra-grammatical word formation phenomena abounding in slang: Blends, Clippings, and Reduplicatives.
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A Computational Framework for Slang Generation (2021.tacl-1)

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Challenge: Existing language models trained on large text corpora are biased toward formal language and under-represent slang.
Approach: They propose a framework that models the speaker’s word choice in slang context by relating the conventional and sexist senses of a word while incorporating syntactic and contextual knowledge.
Outcome: The proposed framework outperforms state-of-the-art language models and better predicts the historical emergence of slang word usages from 1960s to 2000s.
“You Are An Expert Linguistic Annotator”: Limits of LLMs as Analyzers of Abstract Meaning Representation (2023.findings-emnlp)

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Challenge: Large language models (LLMs) demonstrate proficiency and fluency in the use of language, but do they have the linguistic knowledge to serve as an expert linguistic annotator?
Approach: They examine the successes and limitations of large language models using the Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) parsing formalism.
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Understanding Slang with LLMs: Modelling Cross-Cultural Nuances through Paraphrasing (2024.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: a recent study examines the ability of large language models (LLMs) to paraphrase slang within climate-related tweets . slanted tweets from non-anglocentric countries may contain cultural references and idioms based on sociocultural identities .
Approach: They investigate the ability of large language models to paraphrase slang within climate-related tweets from Nigeria and the UK.
Outcome: The proposed model can paraphrase slang within climate-related tweets from Nigeria and the UK . the model can only parse sexist and sex-related slurs, the study shows .
CUTE: Measuring LLMs’ Understanding of Their Tokens (2024.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: Large Language Models (LLMs) perform well on a wide variety of tasks, authors say . they lack direct access to characters, which can be difficult to generalize to new languages .
Approach: They propose a benchmark to test the orthographic knowledge of Large Language Models . they find that most LLMs seem to know the spelling of their tokens - yet fail to manipulate text .
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SLM-Mod: Small Language Models Surpass LLMs at Content Moderation (2025.naacl-long)

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Challenge: Large language models (LLMs) are expensive to query in real-time and do not allow for a community-specific approach to content moderation.
Approach: They propose to use small language models for community-specific content moderation tasks by fine-tuning and evaluating their performance against larger open- and closed-sourced models.
Outcome: The proposed models outperform zero-shot LLMs in content moderation tasks with 11.5% higher accuracy and 25.7% higher recall across all communities.
Small Language Models Also Work With Small Vocabularies: Probing the Linguistic Abilities of Grapheme- and Phoneme-Based Baby Llamas (2025.coling-main)

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Challenge: Existing studies on LMs have focused on linguistic generalizations and representations from developmentally plausible data.
Approach: They propose to use phoneme- and grapheme-based language models to learn linguistic units at and below the word level.
Outcome: The proposed models can achieve strong performance on syntactic and novel benchmarks and match grapheme-based models in standard tasks and novel evaluations.
Lexical Semantics with Large Language Models: A Case Study of English “break” (2023.findings-eacl)

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Challenge: Large neural language models (LLMs) can be powerful tools for research in lexical semantics.
Approach: They argue that large neural language models can be powerful tools for research in lexical semantics by capturing known sense distinctions and identifying informative new sense combinations.
Outcome: The proposed models capture many of the sense distinctions found in the English verb break and can be used to identify informative new sense combinations for further analysis.

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