Native Language Identification

Native language identification (NLI) aims to determine a person's native language based on their writing in a second language. Recent research heavily utilizes large language models (LLMs), both open-source and commercially available, achieving high accuracy, particularly in zero-shot settings; however, research also explores alternative approaches like Big Bird embeddings to improve efficiency and address limitations of LLMs. The field's advancements have implications for various applications, including forensic linguistics, marketing, and second language acquisition research, by providing insights into linguistic patterns indicative of native language background.