Published by: rapgreen (Karma: 1035.14) on 7 April 2009 | Views: 3152
37
Tim McNamara and Carsten Roever’s “Language Testing: The Social Dimension” is the fifth volume in the Language Learning Monograph Series. The volumes in this series review recent findings and current theoretical positions, present new data and interpretations, and sketch interdisciplinary research programs. Volumes are authoritative statements by scholars who have led in the development of a particular line of interdisciplinary research and are intended to serve as a benchmark for interdisciplinary research in the years to come. The importance of broad interdisciplinary work in applied linguistics is clear in the present volume. McNamara and Roever survey the work that language testers have done to establish internal equity in assessment, and they describe the consequences of language testing in society as a whole and in the lives of individuals. Language is rooted in social life and nowhere is this more apparent than in the ways in which knowledge of language is assessed. Studying language tests and their effects involves understanding some of the central issues of the contemporary world.
