CHILDES English-Marathi Gelman Corpus

Susan Gelman Department of Psychology University of Michigan macw@cmu.edu website

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Citation information

When using the FreePlay dataset, please cite this article: Tare, M., & Gelman, S. A. (2010). Can you say it another way? Cognitive factors in bilingual children's pragmatic language skills. Journal of Cognition and Development, 11(2), 137-158.

When using the Bystander dataset, please cite this article: Tare, M., & Gelman, S. A. (2011). Bilingual parents' modeling of pragmatic language use in multiparty interactions. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32(4), 761-780.

In accordance with TalkBank rules, any use of data from this corpus must be accompanied by at least one of the above references.

Project Description

Free Play task: Tare & Gelman (2010)

This study involved 28 bilingual English- and Marathi-speaking children in the U.S., each engaged in two play sessions with a friendly adult researcher: one who spoke only English, and one who spoke only Marathi (in counterbalanced order). Materials for the play session included a Fisher Price airplane set with three toy people and a Dora the Explorer shopping market set.

Child participants were divided into two age groups:

• 14 younger children, mean age 3;2 (range 2;7 to 3;10)
• 14 older children, mean child age 4;6 (range 4;1 to 4;11)

Bystander task: Tare & Gelman (2011)

This study involved 28 bilingual English- and Marathi-speaking children in the U.S., each engaged in looking through three wordless picture books together with their mother. There were three sub-sessions: (a) one included just the mother-child dyad; (b) another included a third, English-speaking researcher who sat alongside and watched/listened in but did not engage in conversation unless spoken to (English bystander); and (c) another included a third, Marathi-speaking researcher who sat alongside and watched/listened in but did not engage in conversation unless spoken to (Marathi bystander). Each bystander first introduced herself to establish that she spoke either only English or only Marathi. The three sub-sessions were in counterbalanced order. Scans of the pages of the picture books are found here .

Gems are marked as No Bystander, English Bystander, and Marathi Bystander in the Bystander files and as English Play and Marathi Play in the FreePlay corpus.

Child participants were divided into two groups:

• 14 younger children, mean age age 3;2 (range 2;7 to 3;10)
• 14 older children, mean age 4;6 (range 4;1 to 4;11)