语言能力等级量表效度研究评述

Language proficiency scales have played a significant role in national language strategy and language education. Recently, China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE) has drawn much attention from academia and the whole society. This paper reviews the current studies on validity and validation of language proficiency scales. It is revealed that most research has focused on one function of the scales—assessment tools. In terms of validity theory of language scales, two frameworks proposed by Zhu (2016) and Fang & Yang (2017) are discussed. Both frameworks hold that validity can be classified into several kinds, but they understand validity in different ways and apply different concepts to refer to the same validity. Comparison of these frameworks shows that Zhu (2016) and Fang & Yang (2017) each have their advantages and disadvantages. As for the experimental studies, interpretations of developing the scales and aligning them to other scales and tests have attracted the most effort. Discussion on the theoretical and experimental research of language scales leads us to propose potential future directions. On the one hand, it seems necessary to integrate the two current frameworks into a new model of validation of language proficiency scales that considers scale characteristics under the guidance of validity theory acknowledged in the educational and psychological measurements and language testing. On the other hand, it is arguable that descriptors of learners’ real language behaviors should come from collecting and selecting real data from a large group of language users rather than the subjective judgment of experts, teachers, and students, mainly because the subjective evaluation might not be fully reliable. Furthermore, CSE and other well-known language scales all boast that they should be used as standards on which language tests can be developed. Therefore it is an open question to what extent validity theories of language testing can be applied to validating language scales.

Keywords： language proficiency scales; language testing; language education; validation; China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE)