A Deep Convolutional Neural Network-Based Model for Aspect and Polarity Classification in Hausa Movie Reviews

Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) plays a pivotal role in understanding the nuances of sentiment expressed in text, particularly in the context of diverse languages and cultures. This paper presents a novel deep convolutional neural network (CNN)-based model tailored for aspect and polarity classification in Hausa movie reviews, as Hausa is an underrepresented language with limited resources and presence in sentiment analysis research. One of the primary implications of this work is the creation of a comprehensive Hausa ABSA dataset, which addresses a significant gap in the availability of resources for sentiment analysis in underrepresented languages. This dataset fosters a more inclusive sentiment analysis landscape and advances research in languages with limited resources. The collected dataset was first preprocessed using Sci-Kit Learn to perform TF-IDF transformation for extracting feature word vector weights. Aspect-level feature ontology words within the analyzed text were derived, and the sentiment of the reviewed texts was manually annotated. The proposed model combines convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with an attention mechanism to aid aspect word prediction. The model utilizes sentences from the corpus and feature words as vector inputs to enhance prediction accuracy. The proposed model leverages the advantages of the convolutional and attention layers to extract contextual information and sentiment polarities from Hausa movie reviews. The performance demonstrates the applicability of such models to underrepresented languages. With 91% accuracy on aspect term extraction and 92% on sentiment polarity classification, the model excels in aspect identification and sentiment analysis, offering insights into specific aspects of interest and their associated sentiments. The proposed model outperformed traditional machine models in both aspect word and polarity prediction. Through the creation of the Hausa ABSA dataset and the development of an effective model, this study makes significant advances in ABSA research. It has wide-ranging implications for the sentiment analysis field in the context of underrepresented languages.