linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, the term T-unit was coined by

Kellogg Hunt Kellogg may refer to: People and organizations *Kellogg's, American multinational food-manufacturing company **Will Keith Kellogg, founder of the company **John Harvey Kellogg, his brother, inventor of cornflakes and medical practitioner *Kellog ...

in 1965. It is defined as the "shortest grammatically allowable sentences into which (writing can be split) or minimally terminable unit." Often, but not always, a T-unit is a sentence. More technically, a T-unit is a dominant

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...

and its dependent clauses: as Hunt said, it is "one main clause with all subordinate clauses attached to it" (Hunt 1965:20). T-units are often used in the analysis of written and spoken

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

, such as in studies on errors in

second language writing Second language writing is the study of writing performed by non-native speakers/writers of a language as second language, a second or foreign language. In addition to disseminating research through the ''Journal of Second Language Writing'', schol ...

. The number of error-free T-units may be counted, as in Robb et al. (1986), or changes in accuracy per T-unit overdrafts of compositions may be measured (Sachs and Polio, 2007). Young (1995){{cite journal, first1=Richard, last1=Young, title=Conversational Styles in Language Proficiency Interviews, journal=Language Learning, year=1995 , pages=3–42, volume=45, issue=1, doi=10.1111/j.1467-1770.1995.tb00961.x gives some examples of what a T-unit is and is not:

"The following elements were counted as one T-unit: a single clause, a matrix plus subordinate clause, two or more phrases in
apposition Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way. The two elements are said to be ''in apposition'', and one of the elements is c ...
, and fragments of clauses produced by
ellipsis The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
. Co-ordinate clauses were counted as two t-units. Elements not counted as t-units include
backchannel Backchannel is the use of networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks. The term was coined from the linguistics term to describe listeners' behaviours during verbal c ...
cues such as mhm and yeah, and discourse boundary markers such as okay, thanks or good. False starts were integrated into the following t-unit." (Young 1995:38)

References

External links

Reading complexity judgments: Episode
* Foster, P., Tonkyn, A. and Wigglesworth, G. (2000)
Measuring spoken language: a unit for all reasons
Applied Linguistics 21/3:354-375. Syntactic entities

See also

References

External links