Measuring spoken language: A unit for all reasons

The analysis of spoken language requires a principled way of dividing trans cribed data into units in order to assess features such as accuracy and com plexity. If such analyses are to be comparable across different studies, th ere must be agreement on the nature of the unit, and it must be possible to apply this unit reliably to a range of different types of speech data. The re are a number of different units in use, the various merits of which have been discussed by Crookes (1990). However, while these have been used to f acilitate the analysis of spoken language data, there is presently no compr ehensive, accessible definition of any of them, nor are detailed guides ava ilable on how to identify such units in data sets. Research reports tend to provide simplistic two-line definitions of units exemplified, if at all, b y unproblematic written examples. These are inadequate when applied to tran scriptions of complex oral data, which tend not to lend themselves easily t o a clear division into units. This paper was motivated by the need each of the three authors felt for a reliable and comprehensively defined unit to assist with the analysis of a variety of recordings of native and non-nativ e speakers of English. We first discuss in very general terms the criteria according to which such a unit might be selected. Next, we examine the main categories of unit which have been adopted previously and provide a justif ication for the particular type of unit that we have chosen. Focusing on th is unit, we identify a number of problems which are associated with the def inition and exemplification of units of this type, and give examples of the awkward cases found in actual data. Finally we offer a definition of our u nit, the Analysis of Speech Unit (AS-unit), providing adequate detail to ad dress the problematic data analyses we have illustrated.