“中国英语能力等级量表”的语言经济学分析

An economics approach to China's Standards of English(CSE)

基于国务院对外语测评改革的明确要求,教育部自2014年起组织研制"中国英语能力等级量表"(CSE),计划于2017年底正式对外公布。为了明晰这一语言教育政策的动因和意义,本文突破传统的研究视角,将语言测评研究与语言经济学相结合,在简要介绍CSE的基础上,运用供给与需求、成本与收益、效率与公平等语言经济学概念作为分析工具,系统挖掘、阐释该量表产生的经济动因与效应,以期从理论上丰富语言教育政策、语言评估等相关研究,并从实践上为语言教育、语言评估、尤其是中国外语能力测评体系的整体推进提供启示。

Based on the explicit requirements of the State Council to reform China's assessment system of foreign language ability, the National Education Examinations Authority(NEEA) of the Ministry of Education launched the project of developing China's Standards of English(CSE) in 2014, which is scheduled to be released in late 2017. To analyze the motivations and signifi cance of such a language education policy, this paper, going beyond the traditional perspectives by integrating language assessment research with the economic approach in linguistics, fi rst briefl y introduces the basics of CSE, and then systematically explores and explains the socio-economic motivations and impacts of the scale, with primary and paired economic conceptions(that is, supply and demand, cost and benefi t, and effi ciency and justice). This paper, with an innovative economic analysis, extends and expands future research on language assessment and language education policy with a new integrated approach, and attempts to enlighten language education and language assessment as a whole and the development of our assessment system in particular.