Evaluating LLMs' Language Confusion in Code-switching Context

Juhyun Oh, Haneul Yoo, Alice Oh

Keywords: multilinguality, evaluation, code-switching, LLM

TL;DR: Even the best performing LLMs frequently fail to generate responses in the expected language in code-switched context

Abstract: This paper tackles the language confusion of large language models (LLMs) within code-switching contexts, a common scenario for bilingual users. We evaluate leading LLMs on English-Korean prompts designed to probe their language selection capabilities, analyzing responses to both simple matrix-language cues and complex tasks where the user prompt contains an instruction and content in different languages. Our findings reveal that even top-performing models are highly inconsistent, frequently failing to generate responses in the expected language. This work confirms that code-switching significantly exacerbates language confusion, highlighting a critical vulnerability in current models' ability to process natural, mixed-language inputs.

Submission Number: 232