2004 7 J ul.

2004
25 4 Foreign Language Educat ion V ol. 25 N o. 4

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( 317000; BS81HH)

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: H0: A : 1000-5544( 2004) 04-0025-05
Abstract: L ang uag e t est ing resear ch, a ty pica l exam ple o f positiv ism, is usually considered the most conserv ativ e field
in social science resear ch . T his ar ticle ex amines lang ua ge t esting r esearch fr om three per spectiv es : 1) establishment
of seco nd lang ua ge acquisition theor y; 2) tex t inter pr etations o f r eading compr ehensio n ; and 3) ethics o f languag e
testing r esearch. I t points o ut that w hile languag e testing resear ch as a so cial pr actice still tries to be in t he cam p o f
modernism, it is nonetheless infring ed by po stmodernism thoug hts, and t hat languag e testing resear cher s have actual-
ly been adopting postmo der nism theor etical perspect ives - indiv idualit y, indeter minancy, inter pr etation, and imm e-
diat eness - and g radually chang ing their r esearch methodolo gy .
Key words : languag e testing ; r eliable; modernism ; responsible; po stmoder nism

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 2004 7 J ul. 2004
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