Coding book:
http://poppy.psy.cmu.edu/childes/index.html
http://atila-www.uia.ac.be/childes
Author: Brian MacWhinney
Title: The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analysing Talk

Number of annotators:
The CHAT system is a real standard for transcription and coding of child language in a number of European and non-European languages. This means that a great number of annotators has been using CHAT for different purposes, so that it is difficult to state an exact number of annotators. Most of the annotators were linguists.

Number of annotated dialogues:
A huge number of dialogues has been/is being annotated with the CHAT coding scheme. This number exceeds the amount of dialogues in the database, as many projects concerning child language make use of CHAT without contributing to the overall CHILDES database. The internationally recognized CHILDES database include transcripts from over forty major projects in English and additional data from 19 other languages. The additional languages are Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), Chinese (Cantonese), Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Mambila, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, and Ukrainian. The total size of the database is now approximately 160 million characters (160 MB).

Evaluation of scheme:
As a result of its worldwide use, CHAT is continuously evaluated and updated to meet the needs of different languages and different users. Anyway, we are not aware of statistical/quantitative evaluations of its reliability.

Underlying task:
Analysis of child language.

List of phenomena annotated:
Speech act codes:

• Interchange type categories ("x"):

• CMO comforting to comfort and express sympathy for misfortune

• DCA discussing clarification of action to discuss clarification of hearer's non-verbal communicative acts

• DCC discussing clarification of communication to discuss clarification of hearer's ambiguous verbal communication or a confirmation of the speaker's understanding of it

• DFW discussing the fantasy world to hold a conversation within fantasy play

• DHA directing hearer's attention to achieve joint focus of attention by directing hearer's attention to objects, persons and events in the environment

• DHS discussing hearer's sentiments to hold a conversation about hearer's non observable thoughts and feelings

• DJF discussing a joint focus of attention to hold a conversation about something in the environment that both participants are attending to, e.g., objects; persons; ongoing actions of hearer and speaker; ongoing events

• DNP discussing the non present to hold a conversation about topics which are not observable in the environment, e.g., past and future events and actions, distant objects and persons, abstract matters (excluding conversations about inner states)

• DRE discussing a recent event to hold a conversation about immediately past actions and events

• DRP discussing the related-to- present to discuss non observable attributes of objects or per-sons present in the environment or to discuss past or future events related to those referents

• DSS discussing speaker's sentiments to hold a conversation about speaker's non-observable thoughts and feelings

• MRK marking to express socially expected sentiments on specific occasions such as thanking, apologizing, or to mark some event

• NCS negotiate copresence and separation to manage the transition

• NFA negotiating an activity in the future to negotiate actions and activities in the far future

• NIA negotiating the immediate activity to negotiate the initiation, continuation, ending and stopping of activities and acts; to direct hearer's and speaker's acts; to allocate roles, moves, and turns in joint activities

• NIN non interactive speech speaker engages in private speech or produces utterances which are clearly not addressed to present hearer

• NMA negotiate mutual attention to establish mutual attentiveness and proximity or withdrawal

• PRO performing verbal moves to perform moves in a game or other activity by uttering the appropriate verbal forms

• PSS negotiating possession of objects to determine or discuss who is the possessor of an object

• SAT showing attentiveness to demonstrate that speaker is paying attention to hearer.

• TXT read written text to read or recite written text aloud.

• OOO unintelligible utterances unknown function

• YYY uninterpretable utterances unknown function

• Categories of Illocutionary Force ("i"):

• Directives

• AC Answer calls; show attentiveness to communications.

• AD Agree to carry out act requested or proposed by other.

• AL Agree to do for the last time.

• CL Call attention to hearer by name or by substitute exclamations.

• CS Counter suggestion; an indirect refusal.

• DR Dare or challenge hearer to perform action.

• GI Give in; accept other's insistence or refusal.

• GR Give reason; justify a request for action, refusal or prohibition.

• RD Refuse to carry out act requested or proposed by other.

• RP Request, propose, or suggest an action for hearer, or for hearer and speaker.

• RQ Yes/no question/suggestion about hearer's wishes and intentions

• SS Signal to start performing an act, such as running or rolling a ball.

• WD Warn of danger.

• Speech Elicitations

• CX Complete text, if so demanded.

• EA Elicit onomatopoeic or animal sounds.

• EI Elicit imitation of word or sentence by modelling or by explicit command.

• EC Elicit completion of word or sentence.

• EX Elicit completion of rote learned text.

• RT Repeat or imitate other's utterance.

• SC Complete statement or other utterance in compliance with request.

• Commitments

• FP Ask for permission to carry out act.

• PD Promise.

• PF Prohibit/forbid/protest hearer's performance of an act.

• SI State intent to carry out act by speaker; description of one's own on-going activity.

• TD Threaten to do.

• Declarations

• DC Create a new state of affairs by declaration.

• DP Declare make-believe reality.

• ND Disagree with a declaration.

• YD Agree to a declaration.

• Markings

• CM Commiserate, express sympathy for hearer's distress.

• EM Exclaim in distress, pain.

• EN Express positive emotion.

• ES Express surprise.

• MK Mark occurrence of event (thank, greet, apologize, congratulate, etc.).

• TO Mark transfer of object to hearer.

• XA Exhibit attentiveness to hearer.

• Statements

• AP Agree with proposition or proposal expressed by previous speaker.

• CN Count.

• DW Disagree with proposition expressed by previous speaker.

• ST State or make a declarative statement.

• WS Express a wish.

• Questions

• AQ Aggravated question, expression of disapproval by restating a question.

• AA Answer in the affirmative to yes/no question.

• AN Answer in the negative to yes/no question.

• EQ Eliciting question (e.g., hmm?).

• NA Intentionally non satisfying answer to question.

• QA Answer a question with a wh-question.

• QN Ask a product-question (wh-question).

• RA Refuse to answer.

• SA Answer a wh-question by a statement.

• TA Answer a limited-alternative question.

• TQ Ask a limited-alternative yes/no question.

• YQ Ask a yes/no question.

• Performances

• PR Perform verbal move in game.

• TX Read or recite written text aloud.

• Evaluations

• AB Approve of appropriate behaviour. Express positive evaluation of hearer's or speaker's acts.

• CR Criticize or point out error in non-verbal act.

• DS Disapprove, scold, protest disruptive behaviour. Express negative evaluation of hearer's or speaker's behaviour as inappropriate.

• ED Exclaim in disapproval.

• ET Exclaim in surprise or enthusiasm, express enthusiasm for hearer's performance.

• PM Praise for motor acts, i.e. for non-verbal behaviour.

• Demands for clarification

• RR Request to repeat utterance.

• Text editing

• CT Correct, provide correct verbal form in place of erroneous one.

• Vocalizations

• YY Utter a word-like utterance without clear function.

• 00 Unintelligible vocalization.

Mark-up language:
CHAT's own format.

Existence of annotation tools:
The CHILDES system contains several separate, yet integrate, tools, subdivided in two major tools. The first tool is a full-fledged and ASCII-oriented editor (CED, Childes EDitor), specifically designed to facilitate the editing of CHAT files and to check for accuracy of transcriptions. The second tool, actually a bunch of several smaller tools, is a set of computer programs called CLAN (Child Language ANalysis) which serve different analysis purposes. The full system is presented in detail in MacWhinney (1991) and illustrated through practical examples in Sokolov and Snow (1994).

MacWhinney, B. (1991). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Sokolov, J. and C. Snow (Eds.). (1994). Handbook of research in language development using CHILDES. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Usability:
Used in the CHILDES project.

Contact person:
Brian MacWhinney (macw@cmu.edu)

Last Modification: 27.8.1998 by Marion Klein