# MKJ at SemEval-2026 Task 9: A Comparative Study of Generalist, Specialist, and Ensemble Strategies for Multilingual Polarization Source: [MKJ at SemEval-2026 Task 9: A Comparative Study of Generalist, Specialist, and Ensemble Strategies for Multilingual Polarization]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2026-07-22T05:00:21.499Z Authors: Maziar Kianimoghadam Jouneghani Published: 2026-04-23T07:34:26.000Z ## Abstract We present a systematic study of multilingual polarization detection across 22 languages for SemEval-2026 Task 9 (Subtask 1), contrasting multilingual generalists with language-specific specialists and hybrid ensembles. While a standard generalist like XLM-RoBERTa suffices when its tokenizer aligns with the target text, it may struggle with distinct scripts (e.g., Khmer, Odia) where monolingual specialists yield significant gains. Rather than enforcing a single universal architecture, we adopt a language-adaptive framework that switches between multilingual generalists, language-specific specialists, and hybrid ensembles based on development performance. Additionally, cross-lingual augmentation via NLLB-200 yielded mixed results, often underperforming native architecture selection and degrading morphologically rich tracks. Our final system achieves an overall macro-averaged F1 score of 0.796 and an average accuracy of 0.826 across all 22 tracks. Code and final test predictions are publicly available at: https://github.com/Maziarkiani/SemEval2026-Task9-Subtask1-Polarization. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. - [Polarization Detection on SemEval Task 9 2026 (test)](): Polarization detection; SemEval Task 9 2026 (test); Macro-F1: 88.92. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 (amh) 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 (amh) 2026 (test); Accuracy: 82.4. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 arb 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 arb 2026 (test); Accuracy: 83.2. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 ben 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 ben 2026 (test); Accuracy: 84.7. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 mya 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 mya 2026 (test); Accuracy: 88.9. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 zho (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 zho (test); Accuracy: 89.1. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 eng 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 eng 2026 (test); Accuracy: 81. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 deu 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 deu 2026 (test); Accuracy: 71.1. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 hau 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 hau 2026 (test); Accuracy: 93.1. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 hin (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 hin (test); Accuracy: 89.6. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 ita 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 ita 2026 (test); Accuracy: 63. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 khm (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 khm (test); Accuracy: 92.7. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 (nep) 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 (nep) 2026 (test); Accuracy: 88.2. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 ori 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 ori 2026 (test); Accuracy: 83.8. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 (pan) 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 (pan) 2026 (test); Accuracy: 76.9. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 fas 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 fas 2026 (test); Accuracy: 87.1. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 pol 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 pol 2026 (test); Accuracy: 81.2. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 rus (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 rus (test); Accuracy: 82. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 (spa) 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 (spa) 2026 (test); Accuracy: 76.3. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 swa (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 swa (test); Accuracy: 78.3. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval Task 9 tel 2026 (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval Task 9 tel 2026 (test); Accuracy: 88.9. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 tur (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 tur (test); Accuracy: 0.784. - [Polarization Analysis on SemEval-2026 Task 9 urd (test)](): Polarization Analysis; SemEval-2026 Task 9 urd (test); Accuracy: 78.3. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()