This repository presents an exploratory self-case study of multilingual inhibitory control in higher-order multilingualism, focusing on Spanish as L5 production in a five-language repertoire.
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This repository documents an exploratory single-case study on multilingual inhibitory control in fifth-language (L5) acquisition. The project investigates cross-linguistic intrusion during Spanish production in a highly multilingual speaker with a five-language repertoire:
- Azerbaijani (L1)
- Persian (L2)
- English (L3)
- Russian (L4)
- Spanish (L5 target language)
The study addresses a central paradox in multilingualism research: higher proficiency does not always predict greater inhibitory interference. Instead, intrusion patterns appear to emerge from a broader interaction of proficiency, age of acquisition, recency, communicative use, dominance, typological proximity, and long-term functional entrenchment.
The repository also introduces the Inhibitory Gradient Framework (IGF) as a conceptual model for explaining why some previously acquired languages become more intrusive than others during L5 production.
A total of 51 cross-linguistic intrusion events were identified across three elicitation tasks.
- Russian (L4): 43
- Persian (L2): 5
- English (L3): 3
- Azerbaijani (L1): 0
- Picture Naming: 16
- Sentence Translation: 19
- Narrative Production: 16
- Lexical: 37
- Morphosyntactic: 9
- Phonological: 5
The most striking finding is the overwhelming dominance of Russian (L4) as the source of intrusion, despite English (L3) being the stronger and more frequently used non-native language. This supports the argument that inhibitory vulnerability cannot be reduced to proficiency alone.
This project uses an exploratory self-case / single-case design. The researcher and participant are the same individual. The aim is not statistical generalization, but theoretically informed description and conceptual model building.
- Age: 40
- Academic Background: PhD in TESOL and Applied Linguistics
- Experience: More than two decades of language learning, teaching, translation, and applied linguistics research
- Azerbaijani: L1
- Persian: L2
- English: L3
- Russian: L4
- Spanish: L5 target language
Three elicitation tasks were used to generate Spanish production data.
Participants named 50 colored pictures representing high-frequency concrete nouns in Spanish.
A set of 20 sentences was translated into Spanish from Persian and English.
A six-frame visual story sequence was used to elicit connected oral production in Spanish.
These tasks were selected to create variation in lexical retrieval demands, syntactic planning, and discourse-level control.
Cross-linguistic intrusion was defined as the production of a lexical, grammatical, or phonological element from a previously acquired language when a Spanish equivalent was intended.
- Lexical intrusions
- Morphosyntactic intrusions
- Phonological intrusions
- Descriptive frequency counts
- Percentage distributions
- Cross-task comparison
- Qualitative interpretation of representative examples
No inferential statistics were used, as the project is based on a single-case descriptive dataset.
Functional Entrenchment refers to the extent to which a language becomes deeply automatized through long-term communicative use across multiple real-life domains. In this study, the concept is used to explain why a language may become highly activation-prone even if it is not the speaker's strongest language in formal proficiency terms.
The Inhibitory Gradient Framework (IGF) is proposed as a conceptual account of multilingual inhibitory control. It argues that multilingual interference is not governed by a simple hierarchy of proficiency or dominance. Instead, inhibitory difficulty appears to emerge from the interaction of multiple experiential and structural factors, including:
- proficiency
- age of acquisition
- recency of use
- communicative intensity
- domain-specific automatization
- typological overlap
- functional entrenchment
Note: IGF is presented here as a conceptual and hypothesis-generating framework, not as a validated cognitive model.
Figures/— all visual figures, conceptual diagrams, and summary graphics used in the manuscript and READMEMultilingual_Inhibitory_Control_Dataset.csv— structured dataset and summary tables of intrusion patternsCoding_Manual_CLIs.md— coding manual for lexical, morphosyntactic, and phonological intrusions- manuscript files — article drafts and supporting research materials
- This is a single-case exploratory dataset
- Findings are descriptive, not population-level estimates
- Pause and repair observations are qualitative and should not be interpreted as instrument-based reaction-time measurements
- The dataset may contain multiple summary structures rather than one normalized experimental table
- The findings are intended for theory development and analytical interpretation, not broad statistical generalization
If you use this repository, please cite the associated manuscript and materials appropriately.
Suggested citation format:
The Paradox of Inhibitory Control in Higher-Order Multilingualism: A Self-Case Study of L5 Spanish Production and the Inhibitory Gradient Framework (IGF).
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For questions about the repository, coding framework, or theoretical model, please use the GitHub repository issue tracker or add the preferred contact information here. Pegah.merrikhiii@gmail.com
deniz.qizi@gmail.com
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