Cultural Alignment of Large Language Models for Sinhala (Proposal Defence)

LLMs have made significant advances in understanding and generating human language, yet low-resource languages such as Sinhala remain comparatively underrepresented in LLM research. Beyond linguistic competence, an important challenge is determining whether these models can understand and respond appropriately to cultural nuances, social contexts, and culture-specific risks. This research investigates the socio-cultural alignment of LLMs in Sinhala, focusing on their ability to understand and appropriately respond to the cultural practices, meanings, values, norms, and contextual variations embedded in everyday Sri Lankan life. To support systematic evaluation, the study proposes the development of a culturally validated benchmark specifically designed for Sinhala. The benchmark will cover multiple dimensions of socio-cultural understanding, including cultural knowledge, practices, meanings, contextual reasoning, appropriateness, and cultural variation, supported by human-validated references that capture the diversity of Sri Lankan cultural contexts. Ultimately, this work aims to establish a systematic framework for evaluating and improving the cultural alignment of LLMs for Sinhala, contributing to the development of more culturally aware and contextually appropriate language technologies for Sri Lankan users.