University of Bergen COLT Users' Manual

About this manual

This document serves as a user's manual for the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT), a collection of British English teenage talk recorded in London during 1993. The corpus was compiled to explore spontaneous teenage language and its impact on adult speech and language change. The project involved recruiting 31 teenagers from five different school boroughs in London to record their conversations using walkman recorders.

What's inside

• Background
• Corpus Compilation
• Speaker-Specific Information
• Conversation-Specific Information
• Header Information
• Markup and Indexing
• Computer Searching
• COLT-Based Research

Frequently asked questions

What is the total word count of the COLT corpus?

The corpus contains roughly half a million words.

How many volunteers recorded the conversations for the project?

Thirty-one volunteering boys and girls recorded the material.

What equipment did the recruits use to record conversations?

Recruits were equipped with a Sony Walkman, a lapel microphone, and a log book.