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Online resources

CHILDES
http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/

The Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) Project has focused on the construction of a computerized database for the study of child language acquisition. There are currently 230 corpora in the database from 30 different languages. These corpora are composed of transcripts of spontaneous verbal interactions between young children and their parents, playmates, and teachers. Some of the corpora represent detailed longitudinal studies of single children or small groups of children collected across several years. Others represent cross-sectional studies of larger groups of children recorded less frequently. The total size of the transcript database is 2.0 gigabytes. Many of the transcripts are linked to additional audio and video media files that allow researchers to immediately playback the interactions on the level of individual sentences at any point in the transcript.

The project maintains a list of 4000 child language researchers and students who have used the database and has records of over 3000 published articles based on the use of these materials. The project has also constructed a set of computer programs that are useful for conducting research into the various levels of language usage including lexicon, syntax, morphology, phonology, discourse, and narrative. The programs and database are freely available for download over the Internet from http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/. Potential users are asked to read and follow the ground rules that can be found at that site.

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Interesting links