Efficient debugging is essential for software maintenance, as identifying, reproducing, and correcting bugs are critical to ensuring software reliability. However, debugging remains a time-consuming and cost-sensitive activity due to the complexities involved in analyzing and resolving bugs throughout the software development lifecycle. Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and particularly Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Large Language Models (LLM) offer promising opportunities to enhance debugging process. Since bug reports are typically written in natural language, NLP techniques can streamline debugging tasks, such as bug categorization, localization, and resolution. To assess the potential of NLP in debugging, we conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of 87 research papers published between 2011 and 2025. Our study presents a comprehensive taxonomy of research efforts, evaluates the effectiveness and limitations of various NLP methods, and highlights best practices across key software debugging tasks, including bug reproduction, bug localization, and bug report analysis. Furthermore, we identify significant challenges in real-world applications, including issues with scalability, accuracy, and adaptability to diverse software environments. Finally, we derive seven findings from our result analysis and propose future research directions corresponding to the findings, to advance NLP-driven debugging practices. This study provides a holistic overview of NLP in debugging for researchers, practitioners, and tool developers, helping to uncover trends, address gaps, and inspire new approaches to improving software maintenance workflows.
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Lota et al. (2026) studied this question.
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