International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children

ISBPAC 2021

The 3rd International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children (ISBPAC 2021) took place fully online on June 3-4, 2021.

This conference was originally intended to take place in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, on May 28-29, 2020, and was then referred to as ISBPAC 2020.

At ISBPAC 2020, while we did not wish to add any more words to the symposium’s name, we emphasized multi- and interdisciplinarity: we aimed to bring together researchers who investigate bilingual and L2 processing from various disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, multimodal communication, and language pedagogy, and all domains of language. Our fantastic keynote speakers illustrate ISBPAC’s aims.

On this page you will find the relevant information about ISBPAC 2021.

  1. Keynote speakers of ISBPAC 2021
  2. The Organization
  3. Important Dates
  4. Program
  5. The Online Venue
  6. Instructions for Authors
  7. Sustainability

Keynote Speakers of ISBPAC 2021

  • Ann Bradlow, Northwestern University
  • Ton Dijkstra, Radboud University
  • Ludovica Serratrice, University of Reading

The Organization of ISBPAC 2021

ISBPAC 2021 Organizers

  • Mirjam Broersma (chair)
  • Evan Kidd
  • Kristin Lemhöfer
  • James McQueen
  • Asli Özyürek
  • Sharon Unsworth

Assistant Organizers

  • Emily Felker
  • Aurora Troncoso-Ruiz

Affiliated Institutes

Funding

ISBPAC 2021 was supported by a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to Mirjam Broersma. 

Contact

Please direct any questions about the conference to Mirjam Broersma: m.broersma@let.ru.nl, or to helpdeskISBPAC@gmail.com.

Important Dates

Abstract SubmissionNovember 15th, 2019 — January 15th, 2020
Notification of AcceptanceEarly March, 2020 — April 19th, 2020
Conference: PostponedMay 28th, 2020 — May 29th, 2020
Registration for AuthorsMay 1st, 2021
Poster submissionMay 30th, 2021
Registration for allJune 1st, 2021 (limited spaces available)
New Conference Date (Online)June 3rd — June 4th, 2021

Program

All times in Central European Time (CET)

Thursday, June 3rd, 2021

Morning session: 09:00-11:30

09.00-09.10Opening
09.10-10.00Keynote 1: Ludovica Serratrice
10.00-10.15Break
10.15-11.30Oral Session 1: Morphology and syntax

Afternoon session: 13.00-17.20

13.00-13.45Poster session 1
13.45-14:30Poster session 2
14.30-14.45Break
14.45-16.15Oral session 2: Speech perception and production
16.15-16.30Break
16.30-17.20Keynote 2: Ann Bradlow

Evening session: 20.00-22:00

20:00-22.00Online social event

Friday, June 4th, 2021

Afternoon session: 13.00-17.35

13.00-13.45Poster session 3
13.45-14.30Poster session 4
14.30-14.45Break
14.45-16.15Oral session 3: Lexical processing and cognition
16.15-16.30Break
16.30-17.20Keynote 3: Ton Dijkstra
17.20-17.35Closing (including announcement of ISBPAC’s next edition)

Detailed program: https://easychair.org/smart-program/ISBPAC2020/

The Online Venue

Where will the conference take place?

The conference will take place fully online using Gather town (with built-in Zoom sessions). Gather town is a platform that aims to recreate the physical setting of a conference. As you walk your avatar through the online conference building, you will bump into other attendees, and can immediately interact with them through a video connection. 

Poster sessions will take place fully on Gather. For the oral and keynote sessions, you can walk into the Oral sessions and Keynote rooms in Gather town, which will automatically connect you to the Zoom meetings.

Sneak preview

The ISBPAC 2021 online venue in Gather is now open for conference attendees. Feel free to explore it at leisure before the conference! You can visit the venue for a sneak preview at any time, using the link you have received via email upon registration.

How does Gather town work?

Gather town is a very easy to use platform:

  1. Log in using the link you will receive via email.
  2. Choose your appearance and name.
  3. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move around the map.
  4. Use the “x” key on your keyboard to interact with objects.
  5. Click on your name and use the “Add text status” to indicate your affiliation.
  6. Click on “Turn On Quiet Mode” (Ctrl/cmd + U) if you do not wish to be disturbed by other participants.

How will the poster session take place on Gather?

We aim to recreate an in-person poster experience. Posters are on display in a poster room in Gather town. During the poster sessions, the presenters will be standing by their posters and the audience will be able to walk around the room and interact with poster presenters, either directly talking to them (with microphone and/or camera) or via chat. Every poster will also be equipped with an online document where the audience can leave comments if the presenters are not around. 

What else can we do on Gather?

Make sure to walk around the online venue during the breaks to meet other attendees! There are group seating areas where you can sit down to chat, and a game area with a range of fun games for two or more players. We hope that you will have many shared moments at our Gather venue!

The conference will take place fully online using Gather with built-in Zoom sessions.

Instructions for authors

Instructions for poster presenters:

  1. By Sunday May 30th, send your poster to postersISBPAC@gmail.com.
  2. Your poster (portrait or landscape) should be saved as a png or jpg file.
  3. The file should not be bigger than 3MB.
  4. For portrait posters, the minimum width is 600px (15.88cm) and the minimum height is 1000px (26.46cm).​
  5. For landscape posters, the minimum width is 1000px (26.46cm) and the minimum height is 600px (15.88cm).
  6. Make sure you use a font big enough (minimum 16 points) to ensure others can easily read your poster.
  7. At the time indicated in the program, stand by your poster to interact with others in the Gather town poster room.

Instructions for oral presenters:

  1. By Tuesday June 1st let us know the email address that is connected to the zoom account that you want to use for your oral presentation, via helpdeskISBPAC@gmail.com. 
  2. Oral presentations each have a 15-minute time slot, which includes 10 minutes for the talk and 5 minutes for questions, moderated by a chair.
  3. During your presentation you will share your screen to show your slides. You can use any file type for your slides, and you can play sound files and short videos.
  4. Please access the Zoom link 15 minutes before the start of your oral session to meet your session chair, and to make sure your presentation is working.
  5. You have to sign in with your zoom account (i.e. not anonymously) in order to have access to this ‘practice session’.
  6. (You will get an email notification from zoom confirming that you have access to the ‘practice session’. You can either access the zoom via the link in that email, or by walking into the oral session room in Gather as usual).

Sustainability

We aim to make ISBPAC 2021 as climate friendly as possible. In order to reduce its environmental impact and improve sustainability, we had implemented a number of sustainable measures, which you can read about below. As the conference is now going to be fully online, we will think about appropriate sustainable measures for the online format. To be continued!

Our sustainability policy before the conference went online:

What do we ask of you?
1. Choose train rather than plane.

We ask you to choose your means of transportation responsibly. As flying is very harmful for the environment, and CO2 emission per traveled kilometer is especially high for shorter flights, please take the train if you can. You can comfortably travel to Nijmegen by train from anywhere in Europe. The Netherlands has an excellent rail network. Three European high-speed trains (Thalys, InterCityExpress, and Eurostar) provide swift and comfortable access to the Netherlands. (N.B. Our favorite way of traveling is by night train!)

2. Choose your CO2 compensation project.

We charge a fee to offset the carbon footprint related to your travel to and from ISBPAC 2020.

  • Please use this calculator to determine the CO2 emission for your round-trip journey. Simply fill in all the legs of your trip to and from ISBPAC 2020 and note down the amount (in EUR) that the calculator returns. You will need this information to register for ISBPAC 2020.
  • At registration, you can choose which CO2 project your carbon offset fee will contribute to. Reforestation, solar power, wind power – there are many deserving projects “that reduce, avoid or remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere.” Our default option is GreenSeat, which supports projects that reduce CO2 emission while improving the standard of living in developing countries. Another place where you can search for projects is the United Nations Carbon Offset platform, which provides an overview of certified projects all over the world.
  • When you register for ISBPAC 2020, you fill in the CO2 compensation project of your choice and your carbon footprint offset fee.
  • Please add your carbon footprint offset fee to the ISBPAC 2020 base registration fee. Upon your registration for ISBPAC 2020, we will ask you to pay the total amount into our bank account. We will then transfer the carbon offset fee to the CO2 compensation project of your choice.
3. Choose between on-site and off-site poster presentation.

Traveling has a big impact on the environment. Distance conferencing has been proposed as a more ecologically-friendly alternative to traditional conferences. We have developed a new form of distance conferencing to reduce our ecological footprint.

In addition to live-streaming all the talks, our poster sessions will include off-site poster presentations. For off-site presentations, posters are displayed at the conference venue; presenters do not come to the conference venue but are present via video chat during their poster session. Each poster session contains a mixture of on-site and off-site presentations.

We offer all poster presenters the option to choose between the on-site and off-site presentation style. Off-site presenters pay a reduced registration fee, no CO2 compensation fee, and have no printing costs as we take care of the display of their posters.

If you have been assigned an oral presentation and are interested in your off-site presentation options, please contact us.

What else do we do to make ISBPAC 2020 environmentally friendly?
Digital over printed

We will provide you with electronic instead of printed materials where possible. Reducing the use of paper saves trees, water, and other natural recourses. It reduces landfill and CO2 emission. It also means a reduction of the use of heavy metals and other harmful components of ink.

Sustainable food

The food at ISBPAC 2020 will be high-quality and delicious. We will work with the best caterers, providing organic, vegetarian and vegan food which is seasonal and locally produced as much as possible.

No swag

We will not provide you with free giveaways and promotional products. Their production is costly for the environment, and they typically end up in the garbage. No swag means fewer unnecessary purchases and less waste.

Waste reduction

We will further reduce waste by choosing sustainable packaging, providing tap water rather than bottled water, and by using reusable items rather than disposable ones. Single-use plastic, which will be banned in Europe from 2021, will not be used in the organization of ISBPAC 2020.

Suggestions?

If you have suggestions to further our aim of making ISBPAC 2020 a climate-conscious and sustainable event, please let us know!