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    Glossary

    Meaning of sentiment analysis

    Natural language processing(NLP) also commonly referred to as sentiment analysis identifies the emotional tone behind a body of text by using sentiment analysis. Using this method, organizations can determine and categorize opinions about products, services, and ideas. The process involves mining text for sentiment and subjective information using data mining, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

    The use of sentiment analysis systems can provide insight into unorganized and unstructured text found in multiple online sources including emails, blog posts, tickets, web chats, social media channels, forums, and comments. By implementing rules-based, automatic, or hybrid algorithms, manual data processing is replaced. An automatic system learns from data using machine learning techniques, while rule-based systems analyze sentiment based on predefined, lexicon-based rules. Both approaches are combined in hybrid sentiment analysis. Both approaches are combined in hybrid sentiment analysis.

    Aside from identifying sentiment, opinion mining can also determine the polarity (or the amount of positivity and negativity), subject, and opinion holder. Additionally, sentiment analysis can be applied to various scopes such as documents, paragraphs, sentences, and sub-sentences.

    How are sentiment analysis classified?

    Sentiment analysis at a finer level of granularity provides a more precise level of polarity, usually ranging from very positive to very negative. On a 5-star scale, this can be compared to an opinion rating.

    In contrast to positivity and negativity, emotion detection identifies specific emotions. A few examples include happiness, frustration, shock, anger, and sadness.

    Besides recognizing opinions, intent-based analysis recognizes actions behind a text. If a customer comment expresses frustration about changing a battery, customer service may reach out to resolve it.

    In aspect-based analysis, specific components are gathered that are positively or negatively mentioned. The battery life of a product might be criticized by a customer, for example. In this case, the system will return that the negative sentiment is not about the product as a whole, but about the battery life.

    Does sentiment analysis pose any challenges?

    The most common challenge associated with sentiment analysis revolves around inaccurate training models. It is common for systems to misidentify comments that are objective or neutral in sentiment. It would be considered neutral if a customer received the wrong color item and commented, "The product is blue," when it should be considered negative.

    A system's inability to understand the context or tone can also make it difficult to identify sentiment. If the context is not given, answers to polls or surveys like "nothing" or "everything" can be categorized as positive or negative depending on the question. Additionally, irony and sarcasm cannot be explicitly trained and can lead to false sentiments being attributed.

    Similarly, computer programs use a lot of trouble when they encounter emojis and irrelevant information. It is important to train models with neutral data and emojis in order to avoid incorrectly flagging texts.

    In what ways does sentiment analysis work?

    In sentiment analysis, as well as opinion mining, natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms are used to automatically assess the emotional tone of online conversations.

    Sentiment analysis models can be implemented with a variety of algorithms, depending on how much data you need to analyze and how accurate your model needs to be.

    There are three main types of sentiment analysis algorithms:

    • Using a set of rules, these systems automatically analyze sentiment.
    • Machine learning is used to automate the learning process.
    • An automated system and a rule-based system can be combined to create hybrid systems.
    • READ MORE: Sentiment Analysis: The Monica Of Friends?