Afrikaans data from the University of Stellenbosch

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES,
  I am happy to announce the addition of data from yet another language to
the CHILDES database.  This is the first set of data on the acquisition of
Afrikaans from a group of researchers at the University of Stellenbosch
including Ondene van Dulm, Debra Aarons, Cecile Le Roux, and Simone Conradie.
Thanks to all these folks for this new data set, which is now included in the
"Germanic" directory on childes.psy.cmu.edu as afrikaans.sit and
afrikaans.zip.

--Brian MacWhinney

Here is the 00readme.cdc file:



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
In the case of this data being used, please cite Le Roux
(1999), as well as MacWhinney (1995) for the Childes
system in general.

RESTRICTIONS:  The investigators would like to be informed if the data is
to be used or published in any form.  Users can let us know via e-mail to
linguis at maties.sun.ac.za.  We would appreciate being sent copies of any
articles etc in which the data is mentioned or used.

WARNINGS:
As the researchers were interested only in various aspects of
syntactic development as from the stage of two-word utterances, only
such utterances were transcribed and coded.  Recording
only began when the subject was consistently using two- or
more word utterances, and single-word utterances were not
transcribed or coded.  Utterances of the other participants, which
surrounded single-word utterances of the subject, were also excluded
from the transcription.  Only the contextually relevant utterances of other
participants, were transcribed.
Also note that cases of suspected ellipsis were not filled in, as the
investigators did not feel justified in making assumptions about what the
child intended to say.

HISTORY:
This project was headed by Cecile le Roux, formerly of the Department of
General
Linguistics of the University of Stellenbosch.  The aim of the project was
the creation of a detailed computerized database on the acquisition of
South African Languages.  Data were collected for the following :
     	2 children age 18m-3yrs, acquiring Afrikaans as L1
        3 English L1 children age 5-7yrs, acquiring Afrikaans as L2
	4 Xhosa	L1 children age 6-9, acquiring Afrikaans as L2
	2 Xhosa L1 children age 14-15, acquiring Afrikaans as L2
	2 Afrikaans L1 children age 5, acquiring English as L2
The data consist of the spontaneous utterances of the children, elicited in
environments familiar to the children, at daycare, school or at home.  The
data collectors included assistants and lecturers of the General Linguistics
Department of Stellenbosch University.  These people included Ondene van
Dulm, Simone Conradie, and Debra Aarons.  The utterances were elicited in a
free play situation with the younger children, and in conversation with the
older
children.  Video recordings were made of the two toddlers, and audio
recordings
of the rest of the subjects.  Transcriptions were done by the various data
collectors, and every transcription was checked for reliability by another
member of the team.  Only the utterances relevant to the study were
transcribed
- please see warnings.  To date, only the data of the two toddlers, acquiring
Afrikaans as L1 has been coded.  The remaining data will be coded in 2000.


BIOGRAPHICAL DATA for Chanel:

Chanel Leuvenink.  (Permission to use real name.)
Born 29/10/96.
Female.
Only child.
Afrikaans-speaking, both parents Afrikaans-speaking.

CONTENTS:
Chanel1		30/4/98		1y6m0w
Chanel2		6/5/98		1y6m1w
Chanel3		14/5/98		1y6m2w
Chanel4		27/5/98		1y7m0w
Chanel5		24/6/98		1y7m3w
Chanel6		15/7/98		1y8m2w
Chanel7		29/7/98		1y9m0w
Chanel8		12/8/98		1y9m2w
Chanel9		26/8/98		1y10m0w
Chanel10	16/9/98		1y10m2w
Chanel11	8/10/98		1y11m1w
Chanel12	21/10/98	1y11m3w
Chanel13	5/11/98		2y0m1w
Chanel14	18/11/98	2y0m3w
Chanel15	25/11/98	2y1m0w
Chanel16	20/12/98	2y1m3w
Chanel17	15/1/99		2y2m2w
Chanel18	3/2/99		2y3m1w
Chanel19	22/2/99		2y3m3w
Chanel20	8/3/99		2y4m1w
Chanel21	23/3/99		2y4m3w
Chanel22	6/4/99		2y5m1w
Chanel23	27/4/99		2y6m0w
Chanel24	10/5/99		2y7m1w
Chanel25	24/5/99		2y7m3w
Chanel26	7/6/99		2y8m1w
Chanel27	21/6/99		2y8m3w
Chanel28	12/7/99		2y9m2w
Chanel29	26/7/99		2y9m0w
Chanel30	16/8/99		2y9m2w
Chanel31	6/9/99		2y10m1w
Chanel32	14/10/99	2y11m1w

SITUATION:
Chanel was recorded by video camera, either at her daycare centre
or at home.  At the daycare centre she usually sat in a quiet room
alone with the investigator, Ondene van Dulm, and looked at books and
played with toys.  At home, her mother Ria was included in the
recordings, and Chanel played freely in the sitting-room,
study and her own bedroom.  She had a great variety of toys and
books.  At times, other people were also present for the
recordings, including her father, Kimo, members of her extended
family, and the daughter of the investigator, Enya.

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA for Jean:

Jean Kriel.	(Permission to use real name.)
Born 14/10/96
Male.
Younger of two.  Older brother 13 years of age.
Afrikaans-speaking, both parents and brother Afrikaans-speaking.

CONTENTS:
Jean1		30/4/98		1y6m2w
Jean2		6/5/98		1y6m3w
Jean3		13/5/98		1y7m0w
Jean4		4/6/98		1y7m3w
Jean5		18/6/98		178m0w
Jean6		6/7/98		1y8m3w
Jean7		29/7/98		1y9m2w
Jean8		19/8/98		1y10m0w
Jean9		2/9/98		1y10m2w
Jean10		20/9/98		1y11m1w
Jean11		19/10/98	2y0m0w
Jean12		29/10/98	2y0m2w
Jean13		12/11/98	2y1m0w
Jean14		26/11/98	2y1m2w
Jean15		20/12/98	2y2m1w
Jean16		14/1/98		2y3m0w
Jean17		29/1/99		2y3m2w
Jean18		12/2/99		2y4m0w
Jean19		26/2/99		2y4m2w
Jean20		11/3/99		2y5m0w
Jean21		25/3/99		2y5m2w
Jean22		9/4/99		2y6m0w
Jean23		27/4/99		2y6m2w
Jean24		11/5/99		2y7m0w
Jean25		25/5/99		2y7m2w
Jean26		6/6/99		2y7m3w
Jean27		22/6/99		2y8m2w
Jean28		13/7/99		2y9m0w
Jean29		27/7/99		2y9m2w
Jean30		17/8/99		2y10m0w
Jean31		7/9/99		2y10m3w
Jean32		5/10/99		2y11m3w

SITUATION:
Jean was recorded by video camera, at home, at first by the recorder,
Ondene van Dulm, and later by his mother.  The video camera was simply
switched on to record at various times during his daily activities, including
dinner time, bath time, play time, story time etc.  At times, Jean's older
brother Lexie and/or father Lex was also present.

Contact person:

Ondene van Dulm
Department of General Linguistics
University of Stellenbosch
Private Bag X1
Stellenbosch 7602
South Africa
ovd at akad.sun.ac.za