Welsh Acquisition Database

Data

The following table gives details about the size and scope of the project in terms of numbers of children, age, and recordings made.

Children Ages Numbers of files Hours of recording
about ½ hour per recording 		Names of the files Size of files
Southern          
Bethan 1;7.28 - 2;4.23 24 12 hours bethan01-24 280kb
Melisa 1;6.17 - 2;3.23 26 13 hours melisa01-26 314kb
Rhian 1;6.20 - 2;3.17 25 12.5 hours rhian0-25 324kb
Northern          
Alaw 1;6.08 - 2;3.21 27 13.5 hours alaw01-27 584kb
Dewi 1;9.21 - 2;6.09 29 14.5 hours dewi06-38 531kb
Elin 1;5.08 - 1;9.20 11 5.5 hours elin01-11 153kb
Rhys 1;8.31 - 2;5.21 26 13 hours rhys01-26 548kb
Totals   168  84 hours   2.67mb


The following table shows the number of recordings that were made in each month of the children's ages: for example, at 17 months of age there is one child, and at 20 months of age there are six children. Grouping the children in this way allows averages to be calculated for each month.

Child
Months
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
 
Elin
+
+
+
+
+
Melisa
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Rhian
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Alaw
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Bethan
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Rhys
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Dewi
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
 
Totals
1
4
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
3
2
1


The data were collected in the homes of the children: four in north Wales, and three in  mid-Wales. The children were recorded every fortnight at the beginning of the project and then every week. The recordings were transcribed in CHILDES format.

Using two locations was an attempt to include dialectal differences in the study. One researcher was familiar with northern dialects, and another was familiar with southern dialects.

The recordings of Elin were abandoned in favour of the more talkative Dewi. The latter had been the subject of a smaller-scale project in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Wales Bangor, and the audio-recordings were already available.