Soggettività, vaghezza e ambiguità nel language assessment. Note sui confini dell’attribuzione di valore

This paper deals with ambiguity, subjectivity and vagueness in Language Assessment (LA) within the theoretical framework of fuzzy logic (see Zadeh [1965], Williamson [1994], Dietz - Moruzzi [2009], Moruzzi [2012]). The focus is on a particular moment of the LA process, the attribution of value (a score, a judgment or a grade) [Domenici 2002]. The paper tries to answer two main questions: under which conditions do subjectivity and vagueness not compromise the reliability of the evaluation process when scoring and, above all, certifying the achievement of a competence level? To what extent is the dialogue with subjectivity – now widely acknowledged in all reflections on docimology (especially in the Italian context see Bezzi [2014]) – represented in significant areas of language testing?