The CLAN (Computerized Language ANalysis) program is a cross-platform program designed by Brian MacWhinney and written by Leonid Spektor for the purpose of creating and analyzing transcripts in the Child Language Exchange System (CHILDES) database. CLAN is open source software and can be freely downloaded.
History.
From 1984 until 2000, CLAN was used exclusively for the analysis of child language data. However, beginning with the funding of the TalkBank system by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2000, the scope of CLAN has broadened. CLAN is now being used to create and analyze a wide variety of corpora in the context of these databanks: CHILDES for child language, AphasiaBank for aphasia, PhonBank for phonology, FluencyBank for fluency disorders, HomeBank for daylong recordings in the home, and SLABank for second language acquisition. The TalkBank website also provides data for seven other spoken language banks dealing with CA (Conversation Analysis), RHD (right hemisphere damage), TBI (traumatic brain injury), LangBank (classical languages), ClassBank (classroom interactions), SamtaleBank (Danish), and BilingBank (bilingualism).
Features.
All the data in each of these banks is formatted in the CHAT transcription format which is designed for analysis by CLAN. The CLAN programs include facilities in five different domains:
References.
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