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Beyond Understanding: Evaluating the Pragmatic Gap in LLMs' Cultural Processing of Figurative Language

Mena Attia, Aashiq Muhamed, Mai Alkhamissi, Thamar Solorio, Mona Diab · Oct 27, 2025 · Citations: 0

Automatic Metrics
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How to use this page

Low trust

Use this as background context only. Do not make protocol decisions from this page alone.

Best use

Background context only

What to verify

Validate the exact study setup in the full paper before operational use.

Evidence quality

Low

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance. Using figurative language as a proxy for cultural nuance and local knowledge, we design evaluation tasks for contextual understanding, pragmatic use, and connotation interpretation in Arabic and English. We evaluate 22 open- and closed-source LLMs on Egyptian Arabic idioms, multidialectal Arabic proverbs, and English proverbs. Our results show a consistent hierarchy: the average accuracy for Arabic proverbs is 4.29% lower than for English proverbs, and performance for Egyptian idioms is 10.28% lower than for Arabic proverbs. For the pragmatic use task, accuracy drops by 14.07% relative to understanding, though providing contextual idiomatic sentences improves accuracy by 10.66%. Models also struggle with connotative meaning, reaching at most 85.58% agreement with human annotators on idioms with 100% inter-annotator agreement. These findings demonstrate that figurative language serves as an effective diagnostic for cultural reasoning: while LLMs can often interpret figurative meaning, they face challenges in using it appropriately. To support future research, we release Kinayat, the first dataset of Egyptian Arabic idioms designed for both figurative understanding and pragmatic use evaluation.

Abstract-only analysis — low confidence

All signals on this page are inferred from the abstract only and may be inaccurate. Do not use this page as a primary protocol reference.

  • This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.
  • The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.
Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub

Should You Rely On This Paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

Main weakness

This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

15/100 • Low

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Detected

Usefulness for eval research

Adjacent candidate

Extraction confidence 45%

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here:

Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub Tool-Use Eval Hub

What We Could Verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Automatic Metrics

Includes extracted eval setup.

"We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance."

Quality Controls

partial

Inter Annotator Agreement Reported

Calibration/adjudication style controls detected.

"We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance."

Benchmarks / Datasets

missing

Not extracted

No benchmark anchors detected.

"We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance."

Reported Metrics

partial

Accuracy, Agreement

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"Our results show a consistent hierarchy: the average accuracy for Arabic proverbs is 4.29% lower than for English proverbs, and performance for Egyptian idioms is 10.28% lower than for Arabic proverbs."

Human Feedback Details

  • Uses human feedback: No
  • Feedback types: None
  • Rater population: Not reported
  • Expertise required: General

Evaluation Details

  • Evaluation modes: Automatic Metrics
  • Agentic eval: None
  • Quality controls: Inter Annotator Agreement Reported
  • Evidence quality: Low
  • Use this page as: Background context only

Protocol And Measurement Signals

Benchmarks / Datasets

No benchmark or dataset names were extracted from the available abstract.

Reported Metrics

accuracyagreement

Research Brief

Metadata summary

We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural nuance.
  • Using figurative language as a proxy for cultural nuance and local knowledge, we design evaluation tasks for contextual understanding, pragmatic use, and connotation interpretation in Arabic and English.
  • We evaluate 22 open- and closed-source LLMs on Egyptian Arabic idioms, multidialectal Arabic proverbs, and English proverbs.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Validate inferred eval signals (Automatic metrics) against the full paper.
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Research Summary

Contribution Summary

  • We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural…
  • We evaluate 22 open- and closed-source LLMs on Egyptian Arabic idioms, multidialectal Arabic proverbs, and English proverbs.
  • Models also struggle with connotative meaning, reaching at most 85.58% agreement with human annotators on idioms with 100% inter-annotator agreement.

Why It Matters For Eval

  • We present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of large language models (LLMs) to process culturally grounded language, specifically to understand and pragmatically use figurative expressions that encode local knowledge and cultural…
  • Models also struggle with connotative meaning, reaching at most 85.58% agreement with human annotators on idioms with 100% inter-annotator agreement.

Researcher Checklist

  • Gap: Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Pass: Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Automatic Metrics

  • Pass: Quality control reporting appears

    Detected: Inter Annotator Agreement Reported

  • Gap: Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    No benchmark/dataset anchor extracted from abstract.

  • Pass: Metric reporting is present

    Detected: accuracy, agreement

Related Papers

Papers are ranked by protocol overlap, extraction signal alignment, and semantic proximity.

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