Sentiment Analysis in Arabic: An Overview
Saud S. Alotaibi · International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research · 2016
The analysis of natural language text for identification of sentiment has been well-studied for the English language. In contrast, the work that has been done in Arabic remains in its infancy; thus, requiring more cooperation between research communities to offer a mature sentiment analysis system for Arabic. There are recognized challenges that face linguists in this field; some of them inherited from the nature of the Arabic language itself, and others derived from the scarcity of tools and sources. This article provides an overview of sentiment analysis in the Arabic language, by detailing what has been done in English as a model example of such an analysis, and what have been covered to date in Arabic, as well as some of the limitations and existing potential research avenues in this field.