ABSTRACT
The CHAT system provides a standardized format for producing computerized transcripts of face-to-face conversational interactions. These interactions may involve children and parents, doctors and patients, or teachers and second-language learners. Despite the differences between these interactions, there are enough common features to allow for the creation of a single general transcription system. The system described here is designed for use with both normal and disordered populations. It can be used with learners of all types, including children, second-language learners, and adults recovering from aphasie disorders. The system provides options for basic discourse transcription as well as detailed phonological and morphological analysis. The system bears the acronym “CHAT,” which stands for Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts. CHAT is the standard transcription system for the CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) Project. With the exception of a few corpora of historical interest, all of the transcripts in the CHILDES database are in CHAT format. In addition, approximately 60 groups of researchers around the world are currently actively involved in new data collection and transcription using the CHAT system. Eventually the data collected in these projects will be contributed to the database. The CHAT system is specifically designed to facilitate the subsequent automatic analysis of transcripts by CLAN.
