Sentiment classification of Sinhala content in social media

Abstract

In this study, we focus on the classification of Sinhala social media sentiments into positive and negative classes for a particular domain (sports). We have employed machine learning algorithms and lexicon-based sentiment classification methods. We also consider a hybrid approach by constructing an ensemble classifier in which we combine Machine Learning and Lexicon based methods. For individual methods, machine learning algorithms performed best in terms of accuracy. The ensemble classifier was able to improve performance further.