Few studies have examined global foreign accent (GFA) in bilingual children, and little is known about how GFA changes over time and what factors determine change. Here, we examine GFA trajectories in Japanese–English bilingual returnees (Japanese children who returned to Japan after having lived in a majority English environment for several years). In two accent-rating tasks, first language (L1) speakers of English or Japanese rated returnee speech excerpts recorded at three time points over a five-year period. The ratings show a decrease in Japanese GFA one year after return to Japan, and an increase in English GFA, but only five years after return. These findings suggest rapid re-exposure effects of the L1 and relatively stable maintenance of the second language (L2). Changes varied by L2 English age of onset (AoO) and exposure to L2 English while abroad, suggesting a crucial role for these individual factors in transitory contexts such as returnee bilingualism.

中文翻译：

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日英双语海归儿童五年来的语言变化：来自口音评级的证据

很少有研究考察双语儿童的全球外国口音 (GFA)，而且对于 GFA 如何随时间变化以及哪些因素决定变化也知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了日英双语归国者（在英语为主的环境中生活了几年后返回日本的日本儿童）的 GFA 轨迹。在两项口音评级任务中，英语或日语的第一语言（L1）使用者对五年内三个时间点记录的海归语音摘录进行评级。评级显示，返回日本一年后，日本建筑面积有所下降，而英国建筑面积有所增加，但仅在返回五年后。这些发现表明 L1 的快速重新接触效应和第二语言 (L2) 的相对稳定的维持。变化因二语英语开始年龄 (AoO) 和在国外接触二语英语的情况而异，这表明这些个人因素在诸如海归双语等短暂环境中发挥着至关重要的作用。