사상초유의 대통령 탄핵을 경험한 한국사회에서 인터넷은 소통의 새로운 방식이자 공간의 확장으로 여겨진다. 그러나 중국의 인터넷 공간은 한국과는 사뭇 다른 방향으로 발전하고 있다. 표현의 자유보다는 ‘인터넷 주권’이 우선시되기 때문에 국가 안보를 위협하는 요소들은 모두 검열과 차단의 대상이 되고 있다. 인터넷 만리장성(Gr eat Firewall of China)의 구축, 구글·페이스북·트위터 등 글로벌 인터넷 기업들의 퇴 출과 중국 IT 기업의 부상은 중국 내 인터넷 통제가 더욱 견고해지고 치밀해지는 과정을 여실히 보여준다. 이와 동시에 중국정부는 경제발전에 핵심적 역할을 담당하는 인터넷 산업을 발전시키기 위해 적극적인 지원을 아끼지 않고 있다. 정부의 지원에 힘입어 중국은 모바일 결제 시스템, 공유경제 시장에서 타의 추종을 불허하는 성장세를 보이고 있다. 본고는 중국의 사례를 통해 인터넷 공간이 국가권력에 의해 어떻게 재영토화되는 지와 공간이론으로 설명하기 힘든 중국식 가상공간의 확장을 살펴보고, 중국을 포함 한 전 세계적 가상공간이 보편성을 획득하기 위해 갖추어야 할 선행조건에 대해 고민해보고자 한다. 아울러 서구 철학사와 물리학사에서 논의되어온 절대적 공간 개념 및 상대적 공간 개념이 중국의 인터넷 공간에서도 적용 가능한지를 짚어봄으로써 중국의 인터넷 공간이 지니는 특성에 대해 논의하고자 한다.

This paper aims to examine the differential degree of the task difficulty presented in high school English activity books. To achive the aim, the researchers analyzed tasks for three levels(high, intermediate, and low) in five English activity books currently published based on the revised 7th National Curriculum for high school freshmen. The criteria utilized for grading task difficulty are modified from Ellis(2003a, 2003b) which were developed to account for task complexity in terms of input, conditions, processes and outcomes. The results revealed that in general, the tasks of the activity books were organized in the sequential order of difficulty from low, imtermediate to high proficiency, but the difference of task difficulty across the three proficiency levels was not significant. It was also discovered that among three main factors determining task difficulty, task condition, task process, and task outcomes, task process and required task outcomes were more frequently adopted to di fferentiate the task difficulty level. In addition, there was lack of communicative tasks integrating four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in all the five activity books. Further study suggesiotns and limitations are followed.

A field-specific essay test was developed as an attempt to improve the ESL placement procedure for international graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Graduate departments were classified into four areas, business, humanities/social sciences, technology and life sciences, and a set of four input prompts, and writing questions was developed. A total of 124 volunteers participated in taking both the regularly-required general-topic test and the field-specific test. A total-group FACETS analysis of the students’ performance on the two tests showed that they performed better on the field-specific test. However, subgroup analyses showed the field-specific topic effect only in the business and life sciences subgroups, while no prompt effect was found for the humanities/social sciences and technology subgroups. Considering that early in the test development procedure, these results were predicted by in a prompt evaluation session, the results suggest that more effort should be exerted to carefully select the topic and content of prompts in order to secure equivalency of the topic effect across all disciplinary groups. This paper further addresses limitations and promising research directions.