ASL corpora: A proposal.

[Dan I. SLOBIN]

A first start towards Dan's proposal is being fulfilled at Berkeley, where
we are gathering and transcribing adult-child corpora in ASL and SLN (Sign
Language of the Netherlands), using the Berkeley Transcription System
(BTS), which aims to represent both manual and nonmanual information at
the level of meaning units.  BTS transcripts will be contributed to the
CHILDES archive.  They are in a format that allows for search by the CLAN
programs of CHILDES, as well as standard grep facilities.

BTS can be accessed on the CHILDES website: http://childes.psy.cmu.edu
(look under the CHAT heading for either Mac or Windows; BTS is Chapter 11
of the CHAT Manual).  Note, however, that the CHILDES version is presently
under revision; updates forthcoming from Berkeley.

Dan Slobin
Dept. of Psychology & Institute of Human Development
University of California, Berkeley