Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies ›› 2018, Vol. 18 ›› Issue (05): 62-72.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2018.05.010

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Delimiting the Writing Construct in the Scales of China’s Standards of English

ZOU Shaoyan, PAN Mingwei   

  • Published:2020-07-25

Abstract: Delimiting the construct of writing competence serves as the basis for developing the writing scales of China’s Standards of English (CSE). This study firstly reviewed the writing competence theories from the perspectives of both socio-cognitive framework and communicative competence theories. It discussed the merits and demerits of these two perspectives in informing the writing construct of CSE. It, then, proposed an operational definition for the CSE writing construct, and also discussed principles for determining the descriptive parameters of CSE writing scales. The study attempted to extend the traditional language proficiency scales which limited its description of scale constructs to one single perspective (e.g., communicative competence). It constructed a more scientific and comprehensive theoretical framework for CSE writing scales with an aim to advance scale users’ understanding of its rationales and promote its use in the future.

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