Chapter 1 Literature Review
1.1 Previous Studies on Language Competence
Our view of language competence may much or less affected by theconcept of what language is. Different description or hypothesisconcerning language competence has been put forward. (Yang Huizhong,2012： 17), among which are structural ,universal, communicative andcognitive aspects. It is this literature review of language competence thatshed light on our perception of language competence scale's theoreticalfoundation.Structural View of Language CompetenceIn language testing field, the impact of structural view of languagecompetence lies in the widespread of the psychometric structuralapproach before 1970s. The behavioristic psychology studies people'spsychology by observing their behaviors, so it is reasonable that theywould take people's language skill into consideration when testing theirlanguage ability. Lado (1961) holds that language testing refers to language components and skills, the former including the array of thephonetics, intonation, pitch, vocabulary and so on while the latter someskills like listening ,speaking, reading and writing, which is the reflectionof the structural view of language. Little importance was attached to thereal communicative occasion as Lado insists the context is infinite that itis impossible for us to interpret all the discourse in all contexts, while thelanguage components are limited.
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1.2 Previous Studies on Contextual Inferencing Ability
In 2008 in testing weekly, li Jun defined contextual inferencingability as cognitive inferencing ability, cultural contextual inferencing ability, situational contextual inferencing ability and intension contextualinferencing ability.British linguist Bell holds that context includes two meaning, thecontext from internal language and the relationship between discourseand the actual world, namely, the situation, for instance the cognitiveimplicature, cultural implicate and intension.In 1992, Gumpetz insists that there are three stages of contextualinferencing . In the second stage, the listener or reader takes advantage ofdirect inferencing , indirect inferencing and metaphor inferencing to inferand confirm speaker or writer's communicative aim and intension.Wang Wenting (2009) in the enlightment of cognitive contextualinferencing ability on college English reading teaching points out thatreaders might hold an opinion that the implied part is related to his owncognitive context.Wang Yanyu, Leng Hui, Song Xingyun (2008) points out that thecommunicative activity is in close relation to the social and culturalbackground.
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Chapter 2 Theoretical Bases
2.1 Discourse Information Cognitive Processing
Deng Jie (2012) defines the quantity of discourse information as thededuction or eradiation of the uncertain new contents during the processof language communicative process, which is valuable to the study ofdiscourse information. Firstly, discourse as information, the valuedepends on the possibility whether it could reduce the uncertainties whenspeaking. Strictly speaking, the discourse here refers to the informationof parole, which transmitted by the speaker to the listener, or the newcontents or unknown contents that could eliminate listener'suncertainty .Secondly, the quantity of discourse information is from theperspective of listener, referring to the unknown part, the known partruling out for it seldom possess the function of wiping out uncertain information. Once the discourse understands by the listener, the knownand unknown content has been certain. So the more unknown informationthere is, the more the quantity of the information is. In discourse information cognitive processing system view, thesystem involves the world, discourse and language user. The world anddiscourse contribute to a test task, requiring examinee's ability to expressthe world into discourse and sense the whole world through the discourse.While the user possess concept and language which are two abstractcomponents, only by activating the concept and language in our brain canthe discourse be generated and understood. (DengJie，2012： 112)
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2.2 Communicative Language Ability Model
In the 1990s, inspired by Canale and Swain's communicativelanguage ability model, Bachman came up with his own newcommunicative language ability model, which consists of languagecompetence, strategic competence and psychology mechanism. He claimsthat the use of language is a dynamic process in which all thiscomponents of language interact, that communicative language ability isthe combination of knowledge of language and the use of language withstrategic competence as its bond to create and explain themeaning(Bachman, 1990:84). Inthis new model, not only does it enjoy the equal status with languagecompetence, but also becomes the bond, connecting the languagecompetence and context of situation. The strategic competence putforward by Canale and Swain (1980) can be defined as a way to make upfor the situation when the limited language competence is unable toproceed the communication, while the definition proposed by Bachmanmainly refers to the metacognitive strategy, a process of psychologicalcognition in which people use language to communicate (Bachman,1990:84), aiming at evaluating, planning and implementing (Bachman,1990:107).
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Chapter 3 Methodology........ 43
3.1 Research Design........ 43
3.1.1 Research Questions........ 43
3.1.2 Raters, Objects and Subjects........ 45
3.1.3 Instruments........ 46
3.2 Date Collection ........48
3.3 Analysis Methods........ 51
3.3.1 Expert Judgment........ 52
3.3.2 Factor Analysis ........52
Chapter 4 Results & Discussion ........55
4.1 Construction of Contextual Inferencing Ability Scale........ 55
4.1.1 Collection of "Can-Do" Statements ........55
4.1.2 Modification of "Can-Do" Statements........ 57
4.2 Validation of Contextual Inferencing Ability Scale........ 61
4.2.1 Analytical Validation........ 61
4.2.2 Quantitative Validation........ 63
Chapter 4 Results & Discussion
4.1 Construction of Contextual Inferencing Ability Scale
In this part, the construction of my contextual differencing abilityscale will be introduced, which covers the collection and modificationthis scale. While collecting the initial scale, I get some inspiration from YangHuizhong, who introduced the method to establish a scale. The process ofmy collection the initial scale is as follows;
(1) Have an analysis of the initial descriptors and have theirparameters marked;
(2) Combine some descriptors that may overlap with each other;
(3) Delete some descriptors that may not fit for my study;
(4) Unify the expression form of the descriptors.Based on the above principles, I finally obtain 35 descriptors relatedto my study.
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Conclusion
In this thesis, to build up a common reference scale of the contextualinferencing ability, I have investigated the reading and reading expressionparts of the test papers in NMEE from 1987 to 2013, obtaining 35descriptors pertaining to my contextual inferencing ability. To carry out my research, I learn from the literature review of thelanguage competence that the dissection of contextual inferencing abilitycould be considered from the perspective of the some social factors likethe intention and aim of the communication. Inspired by the literaturereview concerning my contextual inferencing ability, I widen myperception of this ability, adding other perspectives like the deduction ofwriting styles, character's identity, the implied meaning and so on. Inaddintion, I benefit a lot based on the CLA and the discourse informationcognitive processing ability. What I gained from CLA is that my abilitycould be perceived as a dynamic process, involving many factors like thebackground knowledge, writer's personal style, and his emotion etc. Toset up my final division of the contextual inferencing ability, I inspiredfrom the discourse information cognitive processing ability model' world view, which views the world from the attribute, relation and procedure,contributing my division of the ability into character, object, incident andtext structural perspective.
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Reference (omitted)