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Impact belief is the conviction that parents have that they can affect their children’s language development (De Houwer, 1999). This paper investigates how parents’ impact belief is shaped and how it transpires into language management which supports the bilingual and biliterate development of children in exogamous families. Interviews with eight English-speaking parents raising English-Japanese bilingual children in Tokyo, Japan were analyzed using the constructive grounded approach (Charmaz, 2014). The results revealed that the parents’ impact belief was influenced by their individual experiences, the support of their Japanese spouses, and peer influence. Specifically, it was positively affected by other parents with older bilingual children. The parents’ impact belief was also strengthened by their involvement in ‘communities of practice,’ i.e., English playgroup and weekend school. Their strong impact belief led to language management efforts which included their insistence on their children speaking English and the regular practice of home literacy activities.

This study examines the relationship between caregivers' conversational styles in One-Person-One-Language (OPOL) settings and early bilingual development. In particular, it attempts to demonstrate that interrogative styles may have an impact on bilingual children's responsiveness in two language contexts. It is based on longitudinal data of a bilingual child from ages 1;3 to 2;3 interacting with his English-speaking mother and Japanese-speaking grandmother. Results from a functional analysis of caregiver questions based on McDonald and Pien's model revealed that, for a given period of time, the bilingual child was exposed to a more tutorial style of interrogation in English, which frequently used questions to examine his knowledge, and a more child-centered style of interrogation in Japanese, which sought information about his feelings and needs. The contrasting interrogative styles led to varying rates of responses and contributed to faster development in English than in Japanese.