I had a great time in Limerick, Ireland at the International Symposium on Bilingualism. This is one of my favorite conferences to go to because it brings together so many people who are investigating bilingualism in many different ways.
My talk focused on whether the degree of influence that the second language has on the first language is affected by the age of second language acquisition. One might expect that early bilinguals, who learn both languages simultaneously or in short succession, might experience greater influence of their second language on their first because their language systems are still quite malleable. Late bilinguals, who learned the second language in adolescence or older, may not experience as much of a change to their first language upon acquiring the second.
What my data show is that both early and late bilinguals showed the same type of influence of the second language on the first. This finding (along with other studies) suggests that the first language is malleable to language experiences even in adolescence or adulthood. We never stop adapting!
It was a pleasure to hear a keynote presentation from Jean-Marc Dewaele, whose talk was informative and funny, and overall delightful.
Eve Higby 