Changes in referential production among Japanese-English bilingual returnee children: a five-year longitudinal study

Maki Kubota; Vasiliki Chondrogianni; Satsuki Kurokawa; Stefanie Wulff; Jason Rothman

Changes in referential production among Japanese-English bilingual returnee children: a five-year longitudinal study

Kubota, Maki ^[1] ; Chondrogianni, Vasiliki ^[2] ; Kurokawa, Satsuki ^[3] ; Wulff, Stefanie ^[4] ; Rothman, Jason ^[5]
1. [1] University of Bergen
  
  University of Bergen
  
  Noruega
2. [2] University of Edinburgh
  
  University of Edinburgh
  
  Reino Unido
3. [3] Tohoku University
  
  Tohoku University
  
  Aoba-ku, Japón
4. [4] University of Florida
  
  University of Florida
  
  Estados Unidos
5. [5] The Arctic University of Norway
  
  The Arctic University of Norway
  
  Noruega
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Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 29, Nº 1, 2026, págs. 120-131
Idioma: inglés
DOI: 10.1017/s1366728925000173
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Resumen
- This study tracked the referential production of 25 Japanese-English returnee children for 5 years upon their return to Japan from an English-dominant environment (Mean age = 9.72 at the time of return) and compared their referential strategies to 27 Japanese monolinguals and 27 English monolinguals, age-matched to the returnee’s age at time of return. Returnees used more redundant noun phrases (NPs) in both languages to maintain references compared to monolingual peers. In English, no changes in NP use were noted over time, but increased exposure to English led to fewer redundant NPs when maintaining references. In their native Japanese (L1), returnees used less NPs for maintaining references and more NPs for reintroducing references, indicating improved reference tracking longitudinally. In sum, returnees’ referential production is more sensitive to L1 re-exposure effects than second language (L2) attrition and crucially, increased L2 exposure minimizes redundant referent production among bilingual returnee children.
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