ABSTRACT

This longitudinal study examined the development of narrative micro- and macrostructure in Japanese-English bilingual returnee children. Returnees are children of immigrant families who move to a foreign country, spending a significant portion of their formative developmental years in the foreign majority language context before returning to their native language environment. The returnees did a narrative task in both their L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English) immediately upon their return to their native language environment and a year after. The results showed no aggregate significant changes in L1 or L2 micro- and macrostructure over time. However, at the individual level, the degree of maintenance of L2 microstructure was modulated by L2 exposure. That is, children who continued to receive L2 exposure better maintained their English microstructure (i.e. Type-Token Ratio and Verbs per Utterance) despite being re-immersed in the L1 environment. In terms of their Japanese, the age of return to the L1 environment and relative proficiency predicted the development of their Japanese microstructure (i.e. MLU, Fluency, Type-Token Ratio) and macrostructure. Our study is the first to track both languages of bilingual returnee children over time, revealing that different background variables affect the change in returnee children’s L1 and L2 narrative abilities.

摘要

这项纵向研究考察了日英双语海归儿童叙事微观和宏观结构的发展。海归者是移居外国的移民家庭的孩子，在返回母语环境之前，他们的大部分成长阶段都是在外语为主的语言环境中度过的。返回者在返回母语环境后立即使用 L1（日语）和 L2（英语）完成了一项叙述任务，一年后。结果显示随着时间的推移，L1 或 L2 微观和宏观结构没有总体显着变化。然而，在个体层面，L2 微结构的维持程度受 L2 暴露的调节。那是，尽管重新沉浸在 L1 环境中，继续接受 L2 暴露的儿童更好地保持了他们的英语微观结构（即类型标记比率和每个话语的动词）。就他们的日语而言，回归L1环境的年龄和相对熟练程度预示了他们日语微观结构（即MLU、Fluency、Type-Token Ratio）和宏观结构的发展。我们的研究首次随着时间的推移跟踪双语海归儿童的两种语言，揭示了不同的背景变量影响海归儿童L1和L2叙事能力的变化。MLU、Fluency、Type-Token Ratio）和宏观结构。我们的研究首次随着时间的推移跟踪双语海归儿童的两种语言，揭示了不同的背景变量影响海归儿童L1和L2叙事能力的变化。MLU、Fluency、Type-Token Ratio）和宏观结构。我们的研究首次随着时间的推移跟踪双语海归儿童的两种语言，揭示了不同的背景变量影响海归儿童L1和L2叙事能力的变化。