Age Effects in Bilingual Language Acquisition

The conference was the final part of a joint international research project “Polish-German Child Bilingualism: The role of age of onset for long-term achievement” conducted by Aldona Sopata (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) and Bernhard Brehmer (University of Greifswald) and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Germany) as well as the Narodowe Centrum Naukowe (NCN, Poland).

The first results of the project were presented by principal investigators, Aldona Sopata and Bernhard Brehmer, and by doctoral researchers, Raina Gielge and Kamil Długosz. Keynote speakers included highly recognised scholars working on child bilingualism:

(i) Annick De Houwer (University of Erfurt, Germany)

(ii) Cristina Flores (Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal)

(iii) Natalia Gagarina (ZAS Berlin)

(iv) Esther Rinke-Scholl (University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany)

Apart from the keynote talks and two presentations of results from the project, there were also slots for young scholars working on age effects in bilingual language acquisition. As an international event, the workshop was a very good opportunity to exchange experience, gain new knowledge from the very latest studies, and form new relationships with young scholars.