Application Of Text Analysis Theories To Language Testing

Since the 1950s, text analysis has become one of the independent subjects. It means analyzing a kind of language until that is much bigger than a sentence, e.g. sentence groups, paragraphs, etc. It aims at helping people to construct and understand all kinds of coherent text. There are two kinds of theories that dwell upon language structure. One is grammar, the other text analysis. The former always deal with single, isolated sentences, while the latter studies text in communications. In other words, text analysis studies how an intended meaning is put across by addresser(s) through the use of language, and how that intended meaning is interpreted by addressee(s) through the application of prior knowledge to analyzing the language. Its purpose is to reveal the basic laws that govern language use.Modern Language Testing, on the other hand, aims at measuring candidate's ability to use language. Ever since 1970s, communicative language testing aims at testing language ability at discourse level, that is, the ability to understand and to produce coherent discourse, which necessarily involves understanding and applying the basic laws that govern language use. It is here that we can find the interface between text analysis and modern language testing. Cohesion and coherence are the two kernels of importance in text analysis. Both of them serve either as ways of thinking or as adequate approaches to textual composition. They are the ultimate goal of text interpretation. Thus, the present research is an attempt to explore the different ways of applying text analysis theories (especially cohesion and coherence theories) to modern language testing and find out whether the testing itself test the test taker's language ability from the view of text analysis. Therefore, as a new discipline in applied linguistics, text analysis will be of great value and importance for the language test designers and language teachers. It can enhance the awareness of test designers that language testing should and could test language ability at a...