Capturing and Quantifying Individual Differences in Bilingualism, Tromsø, September 2-3 2019

We are writing this to all of you interested in bilingualism, and particularly in the exciting topic of measuring and characterizing individual differences. Conveniently placed, both in time and in space, between EuroSLA (Lund, August 28-31) and AMLaP (Moscow, September 5-7), the workshop Capturing and Quantifying Individual Differences in Bilingualism will take place in Tromsø, Norway, on the 2nd and 3rd of September, 2019. We have an exciting line-up of keynote speakers, which you can see below, and are looking forward to having a fruitful discussion among researchers from around the world who work on tracing and quantifying the underlying factors that contribute to the observed individual variation in bilingualism, with a specific focus on background questionnaires. We are interested in different approaches to this topic, from longitudinal/cross-sectional methodologies to chart development, to statistical modelling, discussion on methodological aspects within specific sub-fields of bilingualism research, the development and use of background questionnaires, and more. We are also looking forward to poster submissions from graduate students that encourage discussion on particular methodological aspects of bilingualism research.

Keynote speakers

John Anderson (University of Toronto) – Language and social backgrounds across the lifespan: a retrospective and a view forward.

Cécile de Cat (University of Leeds) – On the relationship between socio-economic status and language exposure as predictors of language proficiency in bilinguals.

Ian Cunnings (University of Reading) – Individual Differences in Second Language Sentence Processing.

Viorica Marian (Northwestern University) – Measuring Bilingualism With Self-Reports and Standardized Tests, or Why a “Bilingualism Quotient” is Unrealistic.

Sharon Unsworth (Radboud University) – Quantifying bilingual experience using the BiLEC: Comparisons and considerations.

You can find more information at the workshop’s website: http://site.uit.no/lava/capturing/

Abstract submission (deadline: April 15): http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/capturing2019