CHILDES SYSTEM OVERVIEW - BASIC -

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option What is CHILDES? 1.

System Exchange Child Data Language

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option CHI ld L anguage D ata E xchange S ystem

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option Why we need CHILDES? 2.

You want to study what I say You want to investigate languages Because….. (Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/klapow/203398273/)

CHILDES provides Tools for studying conversational interactions

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option Who started CHILDES? 3.

Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University Found in 1984 Concord MA

The team Director Brian MacWhinney Contact [email_address] Programmers Leonid Spektor Franklin Chen

members 4,500 

corpora 130 

published articles 1,500 

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option Why we need a lot of data with CHILDES? 4.

We needs LOTS of DATA. WHY? Universals and Differences Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvy/69385239/ Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvy/69385239/

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option Where is CHILDES? 5.

http://childes.psy.cmu.edu visit CHILDES website at

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option How can I get the latest info of CHILDES? 6.

Subscribe to the CHILDES Mailing Lists now!

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option What are the tools provided by CHILDES? 7.

Transcript database Programs for transcript analysis Methods for linguistic coding Systems for audio and video linking The CHILDES system provides tools for studying conversational interactions, including

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option What related software do I need? 8.

BEFORE installing, you should have To read the media files To view the Manual To unzip the corpus To display the characters Quicktime player Winzip Unicode fonts: Arial FixedSys Adobe reader

Download unicode fonts - STEP ONE

Download unicode fonts - STEP TWO

Download unicode fonts - STEP THREE

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option Where is the CHILDES program? 9.

The program available at CHILDES is called CLAN

Download CLAN

4 versions are available  versions  No longer supported ClanWin ClanX + ClanXu UnixClan

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option I want to install CLAN to my Windows. HOW ? 10.

Getting Started @ Windows (Photo Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka/49602421) Download CLAN at ” Program and Database ” Section. updated frequently download new version

After Download (Photo Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka/49602421) Double click the *.exe file downloaded and follow the instructions given by InstallShield

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option I have CLAN now. What should I do? 10.

Download the Manual for details CLAN Program Manual: How to use the CLAN program CHAT Transcript System: How to record the conversation in a standard format at CHILDES.

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option I just want to study the available language database. How? 11.

Click Database to download the Corpus from around the world

TWO ways to view the data View the corpus using WebData You can download the corpus and run the transcript in your local machine in this page. 1. Unzip the corpus into folders 2. Use CLAN program to open the *.CHA files.

Local Transcripts Download the audio and video files here and place them in the same folder of the transcripts.. Download the bilingual corpus here.

e.g. Download YipMatthews bilingual corpus On Window, right click the mouse >> save target as >> choose the directory for this zip file. On Mac, click the link and it will save automatically.

(Photo Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka/49602421) Unzip the corpus files Unzip the downloaded corpus by right click the mouse >> extract here

(Photo Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka/49602421) Unzip the corpus files 1. After extraction, folders, which contains *.cha under names of children being investigated, will place inside a folder. 2. Each folder contains *.cha files, which are transcripts of the bilingual children.

This is a transcript in CHAT format (*.cha file)

Zoom inside a transcript FAT=Father, he is saying “what’s bear doing?” CHI=children, saying “writing a letter, letter” %mor=morphological tier, list parts of speech “ n” is NOUN, “PL” is plural, so “friends” is a plural noun

Download the Manual for more

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option How can I read transcripts together with audio & video files? 12.

(Photo Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka/49602421) Playback with audio file 1. Put the corresponding audio and *.cha files in the same folder 3. Audio Wave of the sound file will pop up inside the CLAN window. 2. Open the CHA file Click Mode >>Sonic Mode>>Locate the audio file. 4. Either use Esc+8 OR Click Mode >> Continuous playback

(Photo Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka/49602421) Playback with video file 1. Put corresponding video files and *.cha files in the same folder 2. Open the CHA file Click Mode >>Sonic Mode>>Locate the video file. 3. Video Player will pop up inside the CLAN window. 4. Either use Esc+8 OR Click Mode >> Continuous playback

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option I want to search words/ language structure from various corpus for research. HOW? 13.

Command window 1. Click Window >> Commands Or Ctrl+D 2. Type the Command here

Basic structure of the Commands freq +t*CHI 0042.cha mlu +t*MOT 0042.cha Tier(s) (started with +t ) Command Name Target file name) (ended with .cha or .cex ) basically composed of 3 subparts

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option Can you introduce me some useful COMMANDS? 14.

stands for Mean Length Utterance A. MLU The ratio of morphemes over utterances

mlu +t*CHI *.cha 2. TYPE 1. Click “WORKING” Locate the files/folder here by clicking SELECT DIRECTORY 3. Click “RUN”

stands for Frequency B. FREQ Count numbers of words used in selected files + Calculate the type– token ratio (a measure of lexical diversity )

freq +t*CHI ( filename) .cha 2. TYPE 1. Click “WORKING” Locate the files/folder here by clicking SELECT DIRECTORY 3. Click “RUN”

is for Keyword and Line searching C. Kwal Search data for user-specified words + Output those keywords in context.

is used for Combination search D. Combo A powerful program that searches the data for specified combinations of words or character strings.

combo +t*CHI +s”what^is” (filename) .cha 2. TYPE 1. Click “WORKING” Locate the files/folder here by clicking SELECT DIRECTORY 3. Click “RUN” You want to search file with the word “what”+”is”

For more information on commands details combo +t*MOT +s"kitty^kitty" 0042.cha kwal +sbunny -w2 +w2 0042.cha example +s “xx^xx” - search for specific combinations of words OR character strings -w* and +w* options for number of text lines included before and after the search words.

combo +t*MOT +s"kitty^kitty" 0042.cha

kwal +sbunny -w2 +w2 0042.cha

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option WOW! Can I create a language corpus for my own kids with CHILDES? 15.

http://childes.psy.cmu.edu YES!!!

This is the Work Flow Sound / Video data CHILD/INFORMANT record transcribe TEXT link RUN CHECK @ CLAN CLAN sound+video+transcript  corpus “ Esc-L” digitalized audio/video files in computer

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/740583 ; royal free under usage option What about the details? e.g. how to record data, digitalize the sounds & video? 16.

http://childes.psy.cmu.edu Visit CHILDES SYSTEM OVERVIEW - ADVANCE - Coming soon!

This introduction was produced by Uta Lam using materials derived from the CHILDES website AND the Bilingual Child Language Corpus contributed to CHILDES by Virginia Yip (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Stephen Matthews (University of Hong Kong). Special Thanks to Brian MacWhinney, Virginia Yip, Stephen Matthew Contact me at [email_address] April 2007 I disclaim any responsibility in regards with photos, contents displayed and links provided by this slides. At time of review, they were deemed valuable either for this slides or content. Upon your visit – this slide or its content may have changed or be unavailable.