Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele delivers the "Gardner" plenary lecture
Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele delivered the "Gardner" plenary lecture at the conference of the International Association of Language and Social Psychology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton on 21st June.
This plenary follows the attribution of the Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bilingualism in 2016 at ICLASP15 in Bangkok. Jean-Marc presented a modern, dynamic, humble view of the psychological and social benefits of bilingualism, referring to the work of his PhD students, where effect sizes are not always very big, where some contradictory findings exist, where the etic view is not all-encompassing, where political and ideological factors play a role, where personal engagement with the topic matters. In doing so, he created an antidote to Ellen Bialystok's plenary the previous day with some light humor. Robert C. Gardner congratulated him afterwards, which made it a high point of his career.