CLL-RetICL: Contrastive Linguistic Label Retrieval-based In-Context Learning for Text Classification via Large Language Models

ACL ARR 2025 May Submission1603 Authors

Abstract: Recent research has delved into Retrieval-based In-Context Learning (RetICL), leveraging the power of large language models (LLMs) for text classification. Despite its promise, a persistent challenge lies in effectively retrieving relevant demonstrations from a support set. Many existing approaches have overlooked the essential role of linguistic label information in guiding this retrieval process. To bridge this gap, we present Contrastive Linguistic Label Retrieval-based In-Context Learning (CLL-RetICL), a novel framework designed to identify the most relevant and impactful sentences without altering the model parameters. Our approach uniquely integrates sentence-query similarity with sentence-label similarity, enabling a more nuanced and comprehensive evaluation of relevance. We tested CLL-RetICL across diverse text classification tasks and evaluated its performance on various LLMs. Experimental results demonstrate that CLL-RetICL consistently outperforms previous retrieval methods that do not incorporate linguistic label information. These findings highlight the critical importance of linguistic label-aware selection in enhancing text classification accuracy.

Paper Type: Long

Research Area: Information Retrieval and Text Mining

Research Area Keywords: re-ranking; pre-training; contrastive learning; dense retrieval

Contribution Types: NLP engineering experiment

Languages Studied: English

Submission Number: 1603