Appel & Lantolf 1994 Speaking as Mediation - A Study of L1 and L2 Text Recall Tasks

7/30/2019 Appel & Lantolf 1994 Speaking as Mediation - A Study of L1 and L2 Text Recall Tasks

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Speaking as Mediation: A Study of L1 and L2 Text Recall TasksAuthor(s): Gabriela Appel and James P. LantolfSource: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), pp. 437-452Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers AssociationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/328583 .

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Speaking sMediation: Study fL1 andL2 TextRecallTasksGABRIELA APPELDepartment fModernLanguages and LinguisticsCornellUniversityIthaca, NY 14853Email: [email protected]

JAMESP. LANTOLFDepartment fModernLanguages and LinguisticsCornellUniversityIthaca, NY 14853Email: [email protected]

IN THE SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY OFminddeveloped byLev S. Vygotsky39) and hiscolleagues on analogywithphysicaltools, lan-guage is conceived of as a symbolic tool.Vygotskyeasoned thatmuch in the same waythatphysicaltools mediatehe relationshipbe-tween humans and theworldofobjectsand thusendow us with the powerto organize,control,and alter thisworld, language, as a symbolictool, mediates human consciousness and thusimbues us with the ability o organize,control,and alter our mental activity. ustas linguists,discourse analysts, and ethnographers havestudied how humans use language to establishsocial contact,to carryout social interaction,and to coordinate behavior in joint activity,analysisof the language produced by individ-uals when theyconfrontcognitive tasks canhelpus understandhow,whatVygotskyeferredto as, our highermentalprocesses (i. e., volun-tary ttention, lanning, ogical thought, olun-tary memory, nd learning) are verballymedi-ated as the tasksare engaged.In thispaperwe will nvestigate owspeakingfunctions omediate thecognitive ctivityfL1and advanced L2 speakers/readersof Englishas they et out to read and recall orally narra-tive and an expository ext. We will show howspeaking not only mediates the subjects' at-tempts o reporton whattheyunderstandfroma text,but also how it serves as the processthrough which theycome to comprehend atext.We thus draw a distinctionbetweenspeak-ingtoreportr recallnd speakingounderstand.swe move throughour analysis, t will become

clear thatperformancedifferences etweenL1and L2 speakers/readers, t least as evidencedin thepresent tudy,re notcategorical.Perfor-mance depends cruciallyon the interaction findividual nd task rather hanon membershipof the individual n some a prior ategory, uchas native and non-native peakeror reader (8).PRIVATE PEECH AND MENTALACTIVITY

Disagreeing with Piaget, who argued thategocentricspeech servesno specificfunctionand merely eflects n ontogenetic tage in thetransition rom ndividualto social speech dur-ing childhood,Vygotskyroposed thategocen-tricspeech playsa centralrole in thedevelop-ment and conduct of mental activity.UnlikePiaget's position,whichsaw egocentricspeechas ephemeral,Vygotskylaimed thategocentricspeech does not disappear, but goes under-ground as verbal thought,or inner peech39).Thus, Vygotskypostulated two "macrofunc-tions" (21: p. 238) of speech-one interper-sonal and the other ntrapersonal.Whilerecog-nizing that the primaryfunction of speech iscommunicative, e argued that peech also hasan equally mportant econdary, ognitive unc-tion (secondary, onlybecause it is ontogeneti-cally aterthan,and cruciallyderivedfrom, heprimary unction).According to Vygotsky,s childrendeveloptoward dult forms fhighermentalprocesses,speaking activity xpands beyond tssocial, in-terpersonalfunction,to include the intraper-sonal functionof communicatingwith the selffor thepurpose ofmediatingmentalbehavior.In the initial stages of thisdevelopment,ego-centric peechmaintains ts social or communi-cativeform,but takeson a psychologicalfunc-tion. Thus, children often ask themselvesquestions about what it is theyare doing and

TheModern anguage ournal,8, iv (1994)0026-7902/94/437-452 $1.50/0?1994 TheModern anguage ournal

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438 TheModern anguage ournal 8 1994)then answer these questions. Eventually, hephysicalpropertiesof egocentricspeech beginto change as its mental functionbecomes in-creasingly rominent:

In thebeginning,gocentricpeech s denticalnstructureith ocial peech, ut n theprocess ftransformationnto nner peech tgraduallye-comes esscomplete nd coherents itbecomesgoverned y n almost ntirelyredicativeyntax... the hild alksbout he hings esees or hearsor does at a givenmoment. s a result, etends oleaveoutthe ubject nd all words onnected ithit, ondensingis peechmore ndmore ntil nlypredicatesre eft.39:p. 145)ForVygotsky,ubjectnd predicate,s used in theabove quotation, are not understoodas refer-ringto formal onstituents fsentences;rather,these termsrefer o semanticpropertiesofver-ballymediated thought.His understandingofthe distinction etweensubjectand predicate smuch morein linewithwhat discourseanalystsconsider as the distinctionbetween given ndnew nformation 42). In inner speech, wordstakeon nuances and mergewith therwords othat new meanings arise within a particularspeaker. In its most condensed form, innerspeech is reduced to a singlewordpacked withmeaning-a cognitive blackhole.As Wertsch's(41; 42) researchshows,forexample, childrenengaged in puzzle tasks often produce ut-terances uch as "Green" rather han a fullyyn-tactic utterance ike "Now, I need to put thegreen puzzle piece above the blue puzzlepiece." The given nformationn theprecedingexample is thatthe child s engaged in a puzzletask that involves situatingpieces of certaincolor in specificspacial relationships o piecesof other color. Hence, the child does not needto statetheobvious (which,bytheway,ncludestheagent"I") as he directshimself hrough hetask;ratherhe onlyneeds to instruct imself sto "whatcomes next." Notice that he utterance"Green" takes on a completely ifferentmean-ing in the case of a differentask,say that ofdeciding which color to paint the leaves on adrawingofa tree.The emergenceof egocentric speech marksthe transition rom ntermental o intramentalfunctioningn whichchildrenappropriatethecognitivepatterns f their ulture as presentedtothembyothers, suallyparents, eachers, ndolder siblings nd peers. As egocentric speechgoes completely nderground s verbalthoughtor inner speech, children assume increasingcontrol over mental activity hat at an earlierstagewas largelyunder the control ofsomeone

else.' However, heprocessdoes not end here.Frawley nd Lantolf 13), reflectingVygotsky'sposition,contend thatcognitivedevelopment snot linear and stable but dynamic nd volatile.Even thoughadults,byvirtueof being adults,achieve inguisticallymediated control-or self-regulation-over theirmentalactivity, hey renotautonomousfinalizedknowers, utare indi-viduals who can, and do, recover and utilize"earlierknowing trategies n situationswhichcannot be dealt withby self-regulationlone"(13: p. 22). Thus, in the face of difficult asks(cognitive,social, or emotional), adults havecontinuousccess o ontogenetically rior know-ing strategies hat allow them to maintain andregain control of theirmentalactivity.2t is insuch circumstances that inner speech resur-faces in the formof private peechs the adultattempts o deal withthe difficulty.3he moredifficultthe task, the more fullythe innerspeech is externalized as private speech; insome cases, as we will show, t oftenbetrays tsinterpersonal riginsas itreemerges n itsfullycommunicative uise.O'Connell provides an eloquent bit of evi-dence taken from the early19th-century er-man writer, einrich von Kleist,whichfurtherillustrates urpointwithregardto the functionof speaking in the mediation of mental proc-esses. Von Kleist included among his works ashortpiece entitledOntheGradualWorkingutofOne'sThoughtsn the rocessf peaking. e quotethe relevant assage as translatedbyO'Connell:Ifyouwant ounderstandomethingnd can'tfig-ure toutby ondering,would dvise ou,my earingeniousriend,o peak f t othenext cquain-tancewhohappens y. t certainlyoesn'thave obea brightellow;hat's ardly hat havenmind.You'renot upposed oask him boutthematter.No, quitethecontrary; ouare first fall totellhim

about ityourself.p. 132)Recently,wocontroversies avearisenin theprivate speech literature.The firsthas to dowith the segmentation of self-talk nto task-relevant and task-irrelevantarieties.Here weassume, along withFrawley nd Lantolf (12),thatall privatespeech produced bya speakerduring the conduct of a task is task-relevant.4The second has to do withVygotsky'slaimre-garding the correlation between the abbrevi-ated quality of private speech and age. Thiscontroversy is not relevant to our present con-cerns and we will, therefore, ot pursue it fur-ther here.5

To summarize: according to Vygotskian the-ory, human speech has dual mediational



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Gabriela ppel ndJames . Lantolf 439macrofunctions-a primary unction, o medi-ate our social activity,nd a secondaryfunc-tion, to mediate our mental activity. Thesecondary-or privatespeech-function is de-rivative nd develops during ontogenesisof theindividualduringchildhood. Yet,because of tssocial roots,privatespeech tends to maintainits communicative features, even though itservesa different unctionfrom social speech.Private peech represents he externalization fwhat otherwisewould remain as covert mentalprocesses (e.g., planning,remembering, earn-ing, etc.) and emerges in the face of difficulttasks. In what follows,we undertake to showhowspeaking, especially n theformofprivatespeech in an L1 or an L2, serves to mediate thementalactivityfrecallingand comprehendingwritten exts.THE STUDY

Subjects.wenty-eightubjectsparticipated nthe study:fourteennativespeakersof English,enrolled as undergraduate and graduate stu-dents at an Americanuniversity,ges nineteentothirty-eight;ourteen ery dvancedspeakersofEnglishas a foreign anguagefrom Germanuniversity,ges twenty-oneo thirty-nine.ll ofthe L2 subjectshad significant xperience liv-ing and/or studyingn eitherEngland or theUS at the time the studywas conducted.Material.One expositoryand one narrativetextwereselectedas the elicitationmaterialforthe study.The expository ext,about the careand propagationofArabiancoffeeplants,con-tains171words and 57 propositions.The narra-tivetext, typicalchildren'sfairy ale about aking,his daughter, nd a prince,contains 484wordsand 92 propositions.Bothtextswerepre-sentedas inconsiderate texts: therewere no ti-tles,no paragraph indentations, nd no othergraphicclues revealingtheir tructure. he ex-positorytext also did not contain a summarystatement f itscontent.The texts re given ntheappendix.Procedure.ubjectswere tested ndividuallyntwo sessions in the office of one of the re-searchers. In each session, subjects were in-structed to read the respectivetext carefully,since theywould be asked to recall its contentorally.No timerestrictionswere imposed. Fol-lowing the self-pacedreading phase, subjectsput the textaside and wrotedown, in a shortbut complete sentence,whattheythoughtthetextwas about. This macrostructurelicitationtask was followedby a three-minutenterview

conductedbyone of the researchers. he intentof this procedure was to intervene betweenreading and recall and thus to move the sub-jects' attentionawayfromthe text. Followingthe request to recall the contentof the text,subjectswere eft lone in the roomtoproducetheir ecallprotocols,whichweretape recordedforanalysis ater. n the first ession,thenarra-tivetextwaspresented;twodays ater, hesameprocedurewas followedfor each subjectfortheexpository ext.Task Characteristics. ecall tasks as meth-odological tools for assessing the extent towhich readers have comprehendeda texthaveenjoyedconsiderablepopularity othin L1 andin L2 research. Their use is predicatedon thefact that text comprehension and recall arecloselyrelated in the sense thatwhat readersunderstand fromtexts, hey an also recall (5).Bernhardt rgues cogently or the use of recallmeasures as a viable and economical means ofassessing L2 learners' comprehension of atext-both in L2 readingresearch as well as inL2 reading nstruction nd evaluation.6Werelyon the well-established actthat recall does re-flectcomprehension,but we also make positiveuse of the fact thatunderstanding text s notnecessarily ompleted during or afterreadingbut "mayoccur in response to specifictaskde-mands" (25: p. 195).One ofthe characteristics f oral recallproto-cols that makes themmethodologically ttrac-tive s thatthey re oftenmarkedbya highfre-quencyofmetacomments,rwhatwe refer o asprivatespeech. These verbalizations,which atfirst ightmayappear to be unrelated to thetask of recallingthe contentof a text,can bequite relevant to the mediation of recall andcomprehensionprocesses.Some L2 researchershave reportedon the appearance ofmetacom-mentsduringwrittenecalltasks.Lee, forexam-ple,found that ome ofhis first ear earnersofSpanish occasionally incorporated metacom-mentssuch as "I have never seen thewords nthe textbefore" (p. 139) into theirwritten e-calls. Similarly, ernhardtobtained metacom-ments such as "I think it talks about .. ."(p. 127) or "spellingof name?" (p.136) in thewrittenprotocolsof subjects' recallinga busi-ness letter.Oral recall in contrast to writtenrecall, byand large,providesfor morerobustmanifesta-tion of metacomments.The greaterdistancebetween internalmental processes and theirexternalizationon paper is oftensufficient oinhibit thewritingdown ofmuch of themeta-



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440 TheModern anguage ournal 8 (1994)comments.Likewise, hegreater mmediacy e-tween internal mental processes and their(oral) externalizationsoften results n an ob-servable ncrease in metacomments.

Analysis fRecallProtocols.ur analysisof theprotocolsfocuseson specificphenomenawhichwe believe provide insight nto how recall andcomprehensionare mediated in an oral task.Specifically, e willconsider thatplanningwhatto say maybe an externalather than internalprocess that s exhibited n specificmanifesta-tions of what an individual ays;thisorientation,as we call it, is not necessarily table,but mayresult n observable formsof re-orientation,ndindividualsmayhave the illusion fhavingcom-prehended a text,when in facttheyhave not.Evidence for these phenomena is exhibited nthe temporalcharacteristics f speech produc-tion (e.g., hesitations, ate ofarticulation, tc.),theactual recalledpropositionalcontent fthetext, nd in theprivate peech produced duringthetask,the atter erving s theprimary ocusof thepresent tudy.Speakings planning urned utward. tandardinformation rocessingmodels regardthepro-ductionofspeech as a complex task, onsistingof various subtasks organized on differentlevels, uch as the evelofdiscourse,the evelofsyntax, exicon, morphology, nd phonology.The assumptionis thatthe formulation f anutteranceproceedsthrough sequence of thesestages, although some mayoccur in parallel.The process is classically separated into twoprincipal parts, planning and execution (6).Speakersare said first oplan whattheywanttosayand thensubsequently oputtheirplan intoexecution "uttering the segments, words,phrases,and sentencesthatmake up theplan"(6: p. 224). The planningpartof an utterance snoteasilyobserved; thas been certainforms fbehavior,whetherspeech errors or interrup-tions in the flow of speech, which have pro-vided a methodologicaltool forobservingcog-nitive processes. For example, the temporalaspectsofspeech have been takentobe indica-torsof thepresenceof internal ognitive ctiv-ity s individualsperform ral productiontasksThe theoretical assumption underlyingtheorthodoxpositionon therelationshipbetweenplanning and speech production is based inlarge part on the earlyclaims made byGold-man-Eisler,who hypothesizedthat the juxta-position of silence versus nonsilence duringspeech activitywas a crucial, and meaningfulfactor n speech production. Specifically, heproposed that periods of external inactivity

(i.e., silences) provide evidencefor some formof internal ctivityi.e., theplanningof an ut-terance). Goldman-Eisler reasoned that the"creation of new verbal constructions andstructures" in contrast to "well-learned se-quences" (p. 26) requiressome time and that,therefore, ilences,orpauses,are functional orthe speaker in the act of generatingspeech.From this, t followsthat, n order to plan anutterance,silence needs to precede speaking.This straightforward iew of the function ofpauses in speech has been called intoquestionbyO'Connell in a challenging ritiqueof main-stream psycholinguistic speech productionresearch.According to O'Connell, the essence ofspeakingcannotbe disclosedifthe act ofspeak-ing is primarily egardedas thetransformationor translation f"somethingnner" nto"some-thingouter"; that s, the encoding of informa-tion into linguisticform. He concludes thatspeaking"is not theprocessofgiving inguisticform to the message nor translating houghtsinto sentences . . it is a processoffinding hemessage by speaking (p. 182)." Our conceptionof speech production,along the same lines asO'Connell, also rejects the hypothesis thatspeaking, alwaysand everywhere, rises fromthe speaker's intention to express a specificgoal,which sthenformed ntoa preverbalmes-sage that s encoded into a linguistic cheme orplan and finally xecuted.We contendthatnotonly can planning occur simultaneouslywithspeech, but that the veryactivity f speakingcan, in fact,be planning, or more precisely,thinking, xternalized as self-directedprivatespeech, the goal of which is planningwhattosayabout a particulartopic.To illustrate urpoint,wepresent hepassagegiven nnumberone takenfrom herecallpro-tocol of an L2 speakeron the expository ask.1)* a. uh [.42] the coffeeplants [.64] need[.98] growb. [.12] the coffeeplantsgrowbest withcurtainc. [.16] uh [3.24] uh coffeeplantsgrowbest [1.66]d. witha temperature fsixty: .34] toe. seven [.48] tydegrees [.76] duringthenight/f. and: [.80] seventy nd more degrees

duringthedayg. [3.30]// and: the ight .14]uh can bekeptoffh. by: [1.10] the direct sunlightcan bekeptoffby



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Gabriela ppel ndJames Lantolf 441i. [.32] bya curtain [3.30]//*In each protocol, the numbers inbrackets ] indicate the lengthofpausesin seconds, the single slash (/)signals arising ntonation, double slash (//) in-dicates a falling ntonation,and a colon(:) signalsa lengthened syllable.In ourview, his peakerhas comprehendedthemajor pointof thetext,buthas problemsrecov-eringthespecifics.By externalizing ortionsofthe text,she is able to organize these into acoherentplan thateventuallyeads to her suc-cessfulrecoveryof one of the instructions orthe care of coffeeplants. In lines (a) and (b),the speaker externalizes part of the plan inwhich she firstvocalizes its elements-coffee

plants and thattheyneed somethingto grow.She also knows that thegrowthhas somethingto do with a curtain,but she clearly annot,atthispoint, recall the precise proposition. Shethenpauses for considerable engthof time nline (c) and subsequentlybegins to externalizethatportionof the textwhich she does remem-ber,namelythatcontrol of temperaturevaria-tions is crucial to proper growth. Her ut-terances in lines (d) through (f), followedby the long pause at the beginning of line(g) serve to allow her to recover the informa-tion relatingto her originalmention of "cur-tain" in (b). At thispoint,she begins, in line(g), to generate the utterancewhichwas thegoal of her plan. Her productionof theword"light" n (g) triggers er recall of thefact hatat issue is theneed to filter irect unlightwitha curtain,as given n lines (h) through i).The second excerpt, presented in numbertwo,whichfurther xemplifies peakingas ex-ternal planning, is taken fromthe expositoryrecall protocolproduced byan L1 subject.2) a. those little [.64] f flowers [.30] littlewhiteb. flowers hatgrowthere [1.62]/ containtheuhc. [.76] seeds [.28] of [.80] uh [.42] theplantd. [.66] / and inside these seeds [.12] aretwo [.84]e. are two [.58] inside these berries aretwoseedsf. [.14]/which are thecoffeebeans [1.40]As innumberone, this peakerhasgenerally n-derstoodthe contentof the textand has somedifficultyecalling heprecisepropositions on-tained in it. To overcomethisdifficulty,he be-ginstopiece together hepartsof a plan,whichultimatelyallows her to recover the specific

propositional ontenthavingto do withthede-scriptionof the formation f coffee beans. Astheplan unfolds, he expandsand sharpensherdescriptionuntilshe arrives t the factthatthecoffeebeans are actually eeds containedwithinberries. t is especially ignificant hat she firstrefers o the berries as seeds, but, in so doing,realizesthat this s incorrect, ecause thebeansthemselves re, in fact,the seeds. Importantly,her utterance n (d) forcesher to abandon herplan and construct newone as evidencedby herepetitionsnd pausesseen at theendof d) andbeginning f e) and therecasting f the eedsasberriesat the end of (e).Both numbers one and two show that whenspeakers essentiallyunderstood the text theyread, planning turned outward and in beingexternal ed to successful, lbeit effortfulecallof thepropositionalcontentof a text.Planningtherefore s directed at the task of recalling.Sometimes, however, n the absence of suffi-cientcomprehensionofa text, differentela-tionshipexistsbetweenspeakingand recalling.In those cases,planningturnsoutwardand, al-thoughultimately irected atrecallingthetext,it is first nd foremostdirected at understand-ing the text.The nextexcerpt presented n numberthreeis taken froman L1 expositoryprotocol andillustrates nsufficient omprehensionon thelexical level.3) a. uh [2.68] it can be propagated [1.76] Iguess thatb. means: [.72] to be made anew or to[.32] to [.22]c. have new [1.10]offshoots f it [.30] uhseverald. times/ [.30] or anytime throughtheyear//Obviously, heword "propagate" caused someproblemsforthisspeaker.The utterance niti-ated with n evidential n line (b) signalsunam-biguously hatthespeakerwas notquite sure asto themeaningof theword, t least withregardto the botanical domain. Yet,crucially,he re-memberedtheword fromthetext.At thetimeofreadingthetext, ome uncertaintybout thetermmust have occurred,not enough for himto completely bandon theword and the con-necting ideas, but enough to make it cog-nitivelyalient nd totrigger carry-overf thecomprehensionprocess nto theact ofrecallingthe textualcontent.The temporalcharacteristics f theprotocolfurtherupportour argument hat hemeaningof"propagate"wasproblematic.Not only s the



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442 TheModern anguage ournal 8 (1994)stretch n number three (b-d) preceded by apause, but it is also interrupted t the cruciallocus,namelywhere the clarification o "I guessthatmeans:" is supposed to occur,thus ndicat-ing that the execution of the entire stretch squite effortful.fthespeaker, nfact,had com-prehended thispartof the textpriorto speak-ing,an utterance uchas thatgiven n (b) shouldnot ave occurredduringproduction.We there-fore recognize its functional value for thespeaker to come to know the contents of thetext-a clear reflection of comprehension asmediatedthrough peaking. n otherwords, nreading and attempting o recall the text,thisspeaker has lost self-regulationnd endeavorsto regain it through speaking, specificallythrough nstructinghimself n what the word"propagate"mustmean. The speakerdoes nothave a plan workedout-on the lexical level-at least,before he initiates the speaking proc-ess. He creates thatplan, not simultaneouslywiththe act of speaking,but throughhe act ofspeaking-speaking to himself.We nextpresent n extendedexamplewhichmore fully llustrates ur point. The protocolgiven in number four was produced byan L2speaker also recallingtheexpository ext:4) a. oh dear // [1.40] uh::: [2.48] yeswithin[.80]b. each berry .40] are twoseeds // [.16]the so-c. called coffeebeans: [.36] which reveryd. importantfor us as uh [.92] coffee:/ 2.04]e. uh::: [1.40] as theyare the so-calledcoffeef. beans // [.42] uh [7.44] unlessthey renotg. [2.22] unless [.28] uh they are not

[2.22]h. [.80] used or unless theyunless one isnot ablei. to: [.42] unless they re notgrowing:/[1.42]j. they:: [2.32] uh [.16] dear heavens[laughing]k. unlessthey re notgrowing:/ [1.50] uhthese1.typical lusters f:: [.58] berries/ [1.52]m.thestem s growing:/ [.30] to a heightofaboutn. [1.38] I think [.20] six foot / [.12] Idon't knowo. // [1.10] anyway::: / [.62]This speaker beginswithan affectivemeta-comment, t thebeginningof ine (a), followed

by substantial hesitation, indicating that shefaces a problemat thispoint n theproduction.She clearly acknowledges having difficultieswith the text.Overcomingtheproblemand re-calling the next thematic focus require atten-tion and additional concentration on remem-bering. The goal here may be trying torememberportionsof thetext,whichserves asa surrogatefor real comprehension.This maybe what her "yes"near the end of (a) indicates,since it is produced following lengthy ausewhile she obviouslyattemptsto remember aportion of the text. She tells herself that shenow knowshowto start nd thather search ofrecovering nformation s completed.She immediately ncounters another prob-lem, however, eginningin the middle of (c).Again she does not knowwhat to saynext,soshe resorts to repeatingone of the items sheremembersfrom the text i.e., coffee).Restat-ing or repeating text,of course, is a strategywhichoften serves to og one's memory, ut inthiscase, it fails to help her to retrieve addi-tional information bout the berries. She be-gins to reproduce anotherportion of the textstarting n line (f) and tries to establish ocalcoherence between "berries" and "coffeebeans." Ifwe look at whatmightbe called thereferential hain in thefollowingdata, we ob-servehow difficultt is for thisspeaker to de-cide what he is really alking bout. She movesfrom"berries" to "coffeebeans," from"they(are not used)" and "(one is not able to)" to"they are not growing),"and finally o "thesetypicalclustersof berries." The speaker doesnotreallyknowwhich ofthe two-"berries" or"coffeebeans"-is growing.From our perspec-tive the struggleshe has withdisambiguatingthese two concepts and assigningthe correctcontent o each one results romhernothavingcomprehended the textoriginally.The point,however,s that thesubjectdoes not realize herlack of comprehensionof the text until she isconfrontedwiththe taskofhavingto recall it.She then attempts to understand the textthrough peakingabout it and isactually ble toresolve the problem at least partially.Sincethere s only fragmentaryextualcontent vail-able to her as she attempts o create meaningfromwhatshe has read, her production is ex-tremelyffortful,videntby frequent nd longpauses,manyfilledpauses, prolongations, ndfalse starts.The subject's laboring is also evi-dent through the externalization of severalmetacomments:"oh dear" in line (a); "dearheavens" n line (j), followedby aughter,which



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Gabriela ppel ndJames Lantolf 443at this point mightalso alleviate some of thefrustrationhat has builtup trying o completethe task; n line (n) "I think,"whichmanifestsheruncertaintyboutwhat she has read and "Idon't know,"which confirmsthat she has notunderstood what she has read.Our data exhibitedmany nstancesof theex-ternalization of the planning process byboththe L1 and the L2 speakers. Importantly, ow-ever, nstanceswherespeakingwas directed atcomprehending he contentof thetextonlyoc-curred when subjects recalled the expositoryand notwhen theyrecalled the narrative ext.We attribute his to the fact thatthe narrativetext was not only considerably asier to under-stand during the reading process itself,but italso facilitated n easier recall of theeventsbe-cause people by and large tend to have moreexperience in reading and retellingeventsofstories.Orientation.wo of the most interesting ea-turesof theattempts o recall theexperimentaltexts are the orientationnd re-orientationtrate-gies thatspeakers deployedwhen engaging inthe tasks.Orientation, n theVygotskian rame-work, s defined as theway ndividualsview anobjector a task,thekind ofgoals they stablishrelative to the task,and the plans and meanstheydevise to carrythe task to its completion(14). Orientation influences the strategiesanindividual seeks to access in carryingout thetask or in dealingwiththetask as an object (14:p. 92). Potentially,hen,it is possible foreachindividual to have a different rientation to-wards the taskand consequentlyto deploy dif-ferent trategies o accomplish the task. In ex-perimentalconditions and classroomsettings,experimenter and teachers typicallygive in-structions to limit the choices of orientationavailable to an individual.However,the mereexistence of nstructions oes notpreclude thatindividuals still may interpret he task differ-entlyfromeach other and fromthe experi-menter or teacher (8). Thus, orientation be-comes a criticalconcept in Vygotskian heory,sinceitcontributes o an understanding fvari-ability n speakers' performances n what theexperimentermayconsidertobe thesame task.What is evidenced in our data are twodistinctformsoforientationtowards he task.One be-comesapparent n theexternalization fa mac-rostructure n the protocols,the other is evi-denced as story-telling.Before consideringspecific protocols,we need to explain brieflyour use of the conceptmacrostructure.As definedbyvan Dijk (9), and van Dijk and

Kintsch 10),a macrostructures that tructurewhichrepresentsthe reader's assignment f aglobal semanticmeaningto a textor discourse.The formation f a macrostructures theresultof a readerhavingprocesseda text, nd on thisbasis, forming coherenttext base. Hence, amacrostructure epresentsthe gistof the textforthe reader. Since theyrepresent hegistoftexts, "true" macrostructures, n theirmostcomplete form,resemble summaries. In theirmost abstract form, theyresemble summarystatements f texts.Withregardto thepsycho-logicalvalidity fmacrostructures,anDijk andKintsch show that readers formmacrostruc-tures during reading, theyform them in theabsence or thepresenceof theirbeingexplicitlystated in the text (as theywould be throughsummary r introductorytatements,orexam-ple), and constructmacrostructureswhetherthey re asked to do so or not (10:Experiments3 and 4). Accordingto van Dijk and Kintsch,macrostructuresmayfulfill variety f cogni-tive functionsn bothcomprehending nd pro-ducing a text,rangingfromkeeping trackoftheorderof nformationna text nd decidingon theimportant nd relevant nformation fatext,to providingstructures hatmayserveascues when textual nformationneeds to be re-trieved 10:p. 195).Twopointsaboutmacrostructuresre crucialto our analysis.The firsts thatmacrostructuresdiffer otentially romone reader to another.Reading and subsequent understandingof atext re notonly nfluencedbythestructure fthe text,but also bythe reader's beliefs,opin-ions,attitudes,nterests,nd knowledge actors.These factors re bornout inwhat n individualreaderretainsas thegistofthe text.Since mac-rostructuresre representations fthegistofatext,they re likely o varyfromone reader toanother. The second point pertains to one ofthe cognitive functions of macrostructures.WithinVygotskian heory t is understoodthatthe more difficult task is for a speaker,themore likelyt is thatmacrostructures re exter-nalized and thusappear in protocols.This wasevident,forexample, in Ahmed's study,whichshowsthatone oftheways ubjectsexhibit con-trolovercomplex tasks (e.g., verbalpuzzles) isbyexternalizingdescriptionsfpossible substepsin the solution beforeattempting o solve thetask tself.Thus, speakerssignaloutwardly owtheyhaveorientedthemselves owards hesolu-tion to theproblem.Our data also reveal that some speakers in-deed externalizedmacrostructuresnd, in so



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444 TheModern anguage ournal 8 (1994)doing, show how theyoriented themselves othe speaking task.We begin with some exam-ples fromthe narrativeprotocols.Those givenin numbers five and six are fromL1 speakers,those in numbers seven and eightare fromL2speakers.5) alrightet me see [... // thiswas a storyabout [ ... ] princessGrace [ ... ] who atthe age of [ . . ] twentywas married to[ . . ] uh [...] a trampbecause ofher[ . . ] hesitance in [ ... ] choosing aprince [...]6) okaythis:fairy alewas about [ ... ] kingArnoldand hisdaughterGrace [ . .. ] //7) the tory ... ] deals about a princess ... ]her name was Grace [ ... ] //

8) the story ... ] tellsabout king [... ]Arnold and his daughterExample number five is probably the truestformof a macrostructurexhibited n thenar-rativeprotocols. t showsquite clearlywhatforthespeakeris thegistofthetext.Examples sixthrougheightare far ess complete,but on anabstract evel also reflect heessenceofthe text.In contrast, onsider the selection of open-ings presented n numbers nine and ten fromL1 speakersand in numbers eleven and twelvefromL2 speakers:9) once upon a time: [ ... ] there was aprincess[ ... ] who could not make uphermind: [... ] about muchofanything[ ...]! //10) Prince Arnold had a [ . . ] daughternamed [... ] Grace [...]//11) KingArnold had a young daughterbythename ofGrace [ ... ] //12) once upon a time there was a kingwhohad a very ovelydaughter[ ... ]These speakersapproachedthetaskofrecallingthe textbytelling tsstory.n numbersnine andtwelve he speakersuse the standardfairy aleopening "once upon a time;" in numberstenand eleven the speakers directly ellwhat be-longsto thesetting.Both of thesetypes fopen-ings are characteristic of storytelling.Thespeakers in numbersfive throughseven,how-ever,first ellwhat the text s about by exter-nalizinga macrostructure eforethey ctuallyrecall it. n otherwords, heyneed toclarify orthemselveswhat t is thatthey re goingto talkaboutbeforethey alk bout it.These twoforms

of orientation, story-tellingversus story-re-calling,are indicativeof thedifferencen rela-tive ase ordifficultyfa task. n the case of thenarrative ext, ewer peakersexternalizedmac-rostructures,morespeakerswereable to tell the

story, nd thus more speakers controlled thetask.In the case of the expository ext, however,the situation hangedto notonlymorespeakersexternalizingmacrostructures ut also to an in-crease ofvariabilityn macrostructures. his isnot surprising, iventhatreadersusuallyhaveless developed expectancies about expositorytexts.Some examples,to be discussednext,aregivenbelow.Excerptsthirteen nd fourteen refromL2 speakers and fifteenthroughseven-teen are fromLi speakers.13) the text deals withan instruction boutgrowing:Arabian coffeebeans [ ... ] //14) [coughing] the storygivesa descriptionof the [ ... ] Arabian coffeeplant [ ...

//15) well we're gonna talkaboutArabian cof-fee plants [ ... ] //16) the uh [ ... ] the [ ... ] paper theredescribed [ ... ] the care in [ ... ]instructions he nstructions o take care[ ... ] of [ ... ] the instructions o takecare of uh [ ... ] Arabian coffeeplants[...]17) it's talkingabout Arabian coffeeplants[...]The structure roduced bythesubject n num-ber thirteen aises an interesting ointwhenwecompare it to the written ersionof the macro-structure roduced bythe samesubjectgiven nnumbereighteen.18) This paragraph deals with the methodhow to growArabian coffeeplants.In numbereighteenwe observe thatthesubjectaccurately escribesthetopicofthe text s "cof-fee plants." In number thirteen,however, hestatesthat hetext s about "coffeebeans." Thisdifferences not trivial.The source of the dif-ference,we believe, is located in her concernoverhow she intendsto initiateand sequencethesemantic nformationn her recall.In otherwords,since the original text startswith nfor-mation about flowers turning into berries,which contain thecoffeebeans,what she reallydoes in number thirteen s to expressa macro-propositionrepresenting he first opic of thetext.Althoughthis s one of the strategies hatvan Dijk and Kintschdiscuss n theirmodel oftextcomprehension, tis not a strategyhatwewould expectto surfaceat thestart frecallinga textwhen that textcomprisesmore thanonetopic. The difference etween externalizingmacrostructurerepresenting hegistofa text)and a macroproprosition (representing onetopicof thetext), n our opinion,clearly lludes



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Gabriela ppel ndJames Lantolf 445to the pressurethat the taskgenerates in thesubject.That is, n ordertoaccomplishthetask,she needs to approach it topic by topic and shehas to tell herselfwhattopic she intends to re-call first.The pressure of the task is also obvious inexcerpt number fourteen,which exhibits thecurious feature of labellingthe text as a story.The speaker'swrittenmacrostructure, iven nnumbernineteen standsin sharpcontrast:19) The text describes the Arabian coffeeplantand gives nstructions orhow theseplantsshould be treated.Under the stress of having to recall the textorally, he demands of the task become moreprominent, eadingthespeaker nnumberfour-teen toerroneouslydentifyheexpository ext.In so doing, she signals overtly hat she knowssomethingabout stories,which are a simplerand more familiar ormofdiscourse.'The Li examples given in numbersfifteenthroughseventeenshow how difficult t is forthe speakers, regardless of their native lan-guage, to establishcontrol over the expositorytext. All three macrostructuresexhibit oddorientations. n numberfifteen hespeakersetsthe stage forhis reproductionof the textbyassuminga situationreminiscent f a dialogicinteraction.He conveysthe impressionof hav-ing a conversationalpartnerwith whom he isgoing to discussplants ("well we're gonna talkabout"). Such an orientation sunderstandablebecause theoriginsofthe self nd self-directedspeech are social, i.e., dialogic. One might tryto explain theutteranceas an attempt o com-municatewith omeone, and theonlypotentialinterlocutor ould havebeen theexperimenter.Fromour perspective, his s an inappropriateexplanation, since there was nothing partic-ularlycommunicativeabout the experimentalsituation.The experimenter,fter ll,was famil-iar with the text,a fact clearlyknownto thespeaker.Furthermore,t s important o remem-ber thattheresearcherwas not even present nthe room at the time the recordings weremade-hardly a situation conducive to dia-logue. The speaker's choice of "talk about"ratherthan something ike "tell" is significantin this regard, since the former expressionseems to implythat a dialogue is anticipated,while the latter s more indicative of a mono-logue. Thus, even ifone were to argue that thespeakerwas perhaps aware thatthe researcherwould-at a laterpoint-listen to his tape re-corded performance, tsimply ould not be as adialogic encounter.

In number sixteen we observe the externali-zation of the on-lineplanningof a macrostruc-ture.The textprovides nstructions n how totake care ofArabian coffeeplants.The overallstructure of this protocol exhibits traces ofspeech characterizedbyGiv6n (17) as pragmaticand byOchs as unplannediscourse.AccordingtoGiv6n, lthoughpragmatic peech marks heearly tagesof child language development, s-pecially n difficult r stressful ituationswhenthere s little imefor nternalplanningto tran-spire,the speaker can, as itwere,reaccess thisearlier stage of linguistic development (17:p. 104). Among the traitsof pragmaticspeechare repetitions nd a slowand hesitating ateofdelivery, oth featuresof numbersixteen.Fur-thermore,Giv6n(16:p. 128) proposes a psycho-logical principle according to which people,whethertheyare in communicativelytressfulsituations, attendfirst o themosturgent ask"whichforGiv6n, s to processthat nformationwhichis mostunpredictable, .e. the commentof an utterance. In number sixteen,it seemsclear thatthe topic for the speaker is the textitself.Moreover t s interestingo note thatthetextreifiedas "thepaper" and markedas suchby his use of the deictic adverb "there." Theproblem,however,s what to sayabout it; thatis, to determinethe comment.We observe theprocess of commentformation s the speakerexternalizeshis inner order in an attempttoformulate a macrostructure as an organiza-tional device for the recall that s supposed tofollow.The repetitions hatoccur are not ofthetopic (i.e., thetext) but of those elementsthateventually orm hecomment i.e., instructionsforcare ofArabian coffeeplants).8Turning to another feature of the macro-structuresgiven above, Wolff p. 234) statesthattheprimary easonspeakersdeploymacro-structuress tocompensateforbottom-up roc-essingdifficulties, resumably he typicalcaseof a nonproficient econd language user. Hefurthermaintainsthatuse ofsuch macrostruc-tures "is not characteristic of Li procotols,"presumably ecause L1 speakersdo not need tocompensateforbottom-up rocessingdeficien-cies. We disagree with Wolff's claim. Bol,Gresnigt, nd de Haan pointout thatno matterhowsophisticated ne's linguistic tructures e-come,worldknowledge"remainsactive on aninner evelwithin hestructure fconscious ac-tivity" p. 63). Hence, relying n worldknowl-edge isan integral eature fmeaningconstruc-tion and does not only come into playwhenlinguisticprocessingdifficulties rise (3). Fur-



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446 TheModern anguage ournal 8 (1994)thermore,Wolff inks the typeof macrostruc-ture externalizedby a speaker to the typeoftexttowhicha personis exposed. Forexample,ifan individual s exposed to a narrative ext,common opening should contain referencetothetext s a "story"; fa text s descriptive, newould anticipate "description"as part of themacrostructure.Althoughsome of our proto-cols conformed oWolff's laim,others ndicatethatsubjects created macrostructures hatdonotalways eflect herhetorical rganizationofthetext hey ead. The speaker n numberfour-teen identified heexpository ext as a "story"and in numbersfifteen nd seventeenthe sub-jects approached the same text as iftheywereparticipantsn a "conversation."

Re-orientation.nce a speaker establishesanorientationto the task,we cannot assume thatthe orientationremainsstable throughout heperformance fthetask.The instabilitynd thesubsequently mployedstrategies ormaintain-ingcontroloverthe taskoftenresult nwhatwecall re-orientation.We will concentrateon thenarrativerecall task,where re-orientation c-curs mostprominently hen the speakersfaceproblems of referenceand referenceshift. nthestory, hebeggar,whomtheprincesshas tomarry ecause of her father's ow, urnsout bea prince.A speakerwho ntends o be faithful othestoryinemustbe carefulnottodisclose thetrue dentity f thebeggaruntilthevery nd ofthe narrative. n otherwords, t is necessarytouse the label "beggar" (or some synonym) orthe characterthroughout hemajor portionofthestory,nd onlyat theconclusionrevealhimas a prince. The protocols given in numberstwentynd twenty-onere typicalof theprob-lems encountered by the L1 speakers as theytried to recall thestory.20) a. and uh [1.42] an finally ne day: theprincesaid uh [.16]b. oops [.30] the uh [1.74] the uh [.48]not theprincebutc. ratherher husband [.54] the tramp[1.72] said uh [.40]d. todaywe're gonna try n earn a littleextramoney[.64] /21) a. uh [.20] one day the [1.0] the princesaid: [.80] uh ohb. [laughing] I'm sorry the tramp[laughing] theworker hethe

c. fellow aid to: [.90] his wife [.80] uh[2.70] there'sa bigd. party tonight at which uh a newprincess s going to be:e. honored [1.0] /

The speaker in numbertwenty as consider-able difficultyinding heappropriatename forthecharacter,s revealedbythe numberof hesi-tations. In addition,he has to externalizethesearchprocess b-c). His "oops" in line (b) indi-cates that he thinkshe has made a mistake.However, here s nothingerroneous about re-ferring o thebeggar as a prince ifone simplywants to recall the text. It is, however, nap-propriate fone's intents to tell a story hat anbe spoiled bypreviewingheplot.The speaker'sdifficultyn re-orientinghimselfhere-i.e. torememberto keep track of the story ine-isreflected n two attemptsthat are themselvesinterrupted yconsiderablepausing n lines (b)and (c) tofind thecorrectwordfor thecharac-ter.Moreover, he re-orientation-in this casemanifested n a lexical search-is partially x-ternalized n line (d). This small stretch s veryrevealingfor t indicatesthatthe course of thesearchproceeds in a reversefashion, tepwise,to the correctword.First, hespeakerhas to tellhimself hat t is not the "prince,"and then hecreates an intermediateink,"husband,"whichaids in recovering"tramp." Thus, re-orienta-tion caused by referential complexity isachieved through an alternating internal(pauses) and external private peech) process,whereby heexternalprocessspecificallyhowstheutilization f a linguistic ign eadingtosuc-cessfulproduction,hence to regainingcontrol.Furthermore, the example shows that thespeaker had to "frame the character" (13:p. 26). By repeatedlynaming thecharacter,heestablishescontrolover theobject.The protocol given in number twenty-onesimilarly hows re-orientationthroughlexicalsearch.In line (a), thespeaker,realizinghe hasproduced an inappropriatereferential evice,utters"oh," similarto the "oops" in exampletwenty. nlike in numbertwenty, owever, hisspeaker not onlyfinds the correctwordwithrelativeease butverifies he correctness fhisendeavor (theevaluative ubfunction fprivatespeech), throughrepetitionoftheconcept,re-alized as a paththrough hesemanticfield i.e.,"the worker," "the fellow"). In thisway,thespeaker assuresforhimselfhe recovery f con-trol and coherence. From a textual point ofview,however,"worker" and "fellow" do notfunctionas unambiguous cohesivedevices for"beggar."The protocolsgiven in numberstwenty-twoand twenty-threeereproducedbyL2 speakers,and althoughtheyboth suggestre-orientationproblems,the re-orientation s achieved with-



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Gabriela ppel ndJames Lantolf 447out the extensive externalizations demon-stratedbytheLi speakers.22) a. thenafterone year [.66] that:princeb. uh thatman told [.36] to: Grace /

23) a. [2.16] after that time [1.34] one the[.40] theprin [.24]b. no [.60] the tramp told [laughing][2.10] theprincessThe speaker in number twenty-twoasilycor-rects her slip; re-orientation, therefore,doesnot require a significant xpenditureof effort.This is somewhat understandable, however,since she replaces "prince"with thesuperordi-nate word "man." It is easier to relyon genericexpressionsthan to come up with termwithhigh degree of specificity. his speaker solvestheproblem,butcan onlydo so byresorting outilizationofa word withhighfunctional alue.Regardlessofwhich exical substitutespeakerschose,each specific exeme has a definitefunc-tional value fortherespective peaker in facili-tating the re-establishment of control andmaintaining the activity.What objectively, nterms fthetext, ppearsas a false ink ofcohe-sion,is,forthe ndividual, perfectlyppropri-ate link.As forprotocol twenty-three,ftersome ap-parentprocessingproblems-indicated bythefrequentand lengthypauses in line (a)-thespeaker begins to utter the narrativelynap-propriate"prince."Yet,before he can producethe final segmentof the word [s], she realizesher slip, and corrects it withone of two syn-onymous terms given in the original text,namely"tramp."However, o achieve thismod-ification, he speakerfirst ells herself hat shehas made a mistake ("no" in line b). This isfollowedbya pause prior to uttering he solu-tion to the dilemma. The search-probablythroughher memoryof the text rather thansome semanticfieldcontaining"tramp,"unlikein the case of the L1 speakers-is relativelyquick and, most mportantly,nternal.9The llusion fComprehension.n the1940sA. A.Smirnov nvestigated ropertiesof involuntaryand voluntarymemory, evelopingsome of theproposalsVygotskynd othershad made earlier.In explaining the role of comprehension inmemorization, mirnov rew ttention o a phe-nomenonwhichhe describedas thefact hatof-ten times,whenpeople attempt o learn fromtext, hey elievetheyhavemastered tscontentafterhavingread itand they eelquiteconfidentto reproduce it. Yet,when actually tarting ospeak, i.e. to reproduce, theyencounterprob-lems, "although during perception or after t

[they] had the clear impressionthatno diffi-cultieswouldbe metwith n reproduction" 37:p. 127). Smirnov ermedthisphenomenon "theillusionofremembering."Some recentstudieson textcomprehensionhave investigated he mismatchbetweena per-son's self-assessment f understandinga textand the objective accuracyof thatunderstand-ing (19,18, 33). Glenberg,Wilkinson, nd Ep-stein),on analogywithperceptual llusions, re-ated the term "illusionofknowing"to refer opeople's beliefs that comprehensionhas beenattained, when in fact it has not. Althoughother researchers 29) have shown thatpeopledo notalways erform oorly ngiving correctassessment f theirknowledge, verconfidenceratings re obtained consistentlyn theLi liter-ature on adult textcomprehension.We now turnto explainingsome of thedatain our study n lightof the concept of illusorycomprehension. Examples twenty-four ndtwenty-fivere fromLi speakers, nd twenty-sixand twenty-eightre fromL2 speakers.24) a. uh [.76] uh [.14]Arabiancoffeeplants// [2.02] uh: [2.46]b. (jiyz) [2.18] uh [.30] have seeds /[.58] two ofwhich:turnc. into [.40] two [1.20] oh inside the[.16] berries are twod. seeds / [.12] that [.44] are the coffeebeans / [.52]25) a. the Arabian coffeeplant [.52] grows:[.88] oh grief .22]b. I forgot .30] four to six [.96] inches[1.72] uh [.70]d. oh [.74] theberries/ [.34] the flowersof theArabiane. coffee plant grow four to six inchesfromthebottom of thef. [1.52] on the bottomof the plant //[.72] those littleg. [.64] fflowers .30] littlewhiteflowersthatgrowthere/h. [1.62] contain the uh [.76] seeds [.28]of [.80] uh [.42]i. theplant/ [.66] and insidethese seeds[.12] are two [.84]j. are two [.58] inside these berries aretwo seeds / [.14]k. whichare thecoffeebeans // [1.40]26) a. uh the [.28] text describes Arabian

coffeeplant// [.50]b. thisplantuh [1.0] is aboutfourtto sixinches long /c. [.38] and: [.14] uh [1.46] (coughing)[.86] the [.80]



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448 TheModern anguage ournal 8 (1994)d. white/ [11.]after bout threequarters[.66] of ae. year: / [.98] uh some: [.20] red ber-ries:: [1.64]f.uh [5.58] grow/ [1.72]27) a. duringtheir tate of: [.72] mature//[1.56] oh dear //b. [1.40] uh::: [2.48] yes within [.80]each berry .40] arec. two seeds // [.16]Protocol twenty-four emonstrates ratherdramatically he speaker's lack of textualcom-prehension and the need to externalize inorder totry ounderstand he text.Before tart-ing to speak, the speaker had to fixate herorientation.In line (a) she does so by exter-

nalizingwhatthe text sabout.Yet, his sclearlynot sufficient o enable her to begin recallingthetext, o she stopsand says jiyz] in line (b),obviously ttesting o her not knowingwhat tosay,forshe obviouslydid not comprehend thetext tthetimeofreading.The overt ttempt ounderstand hebeginningofthe text ontinuesuntil ine (c),where she thinkshe knowshow tocontinue. The "oh," in the same line clearly n-dicates the conclusion of thatprocess, signal-lingthat he now remembers ne ofthepropo-sitionsfromthe original text. While the nextsegmentof her productionproceeds relativelysmoothly by comparison, its structure showsthat her attempt at producing well-formedspeech isunsuccessful; t acks coherenceand isincomprehensible o someone unfamiliarwiththeoriginaltext.In number twenty-fivehe speaker believesshe knows the information romthe text.Shestarts utfairly luentlynd immediately eginsto recall the informationn line (a). As soon asshe produces thefirst ivewords,however, herealizesthat, nfact, he cannot recall theexactinformation, as indicated by her metacom-ments at the end of (a) and beginningof (b).Somehow she has retained two numbers andsomething bout size,but she ismissing heap-propriaterelations. t is interestingo note thatthispiece of information riggers herecoveryof the concept "berries" in line (d); again themarker"oh," which immediately recedes, re-veals that he is able to restore thematic ocusand continueher discourse. t is puzzling,how-ever,that she does not elaborate on the topic;i.e., she does notfill t withdetails,but switchesto a different ocusand only ttends o thispart("the berries") near the end in line (j). Theonlyplausibleexplanationis toassume that hispartof the text s indeed not sufficientlytabi-

lized forher to expand upon. The uttering fthe phrase itself,however, nables her to saysomethingfromthe textthat she now remem-bers and recalls,which,whencompared to thefirst our ines, srenderedfluently.ndeed, sheis able to recall the entire beginning of theoriginal text. We see here a clear example ofhow the recoveryof one part of informationfromthe text and its subsequent externaliza-tion functions s a mediatorto retrieve omeother part of information romthe text,thuscreating linkbetween the known nd the not-known.Bothprotocols, herefore,epresentnotan attempt o reportsomethingbut to compre-hend omething hatthe speakers thought heyhad understood.The twoL2 protocolssimilarly emonstratethe problem of not knowingwhat to say. Innumbertwenty-six,fter xternalizing he mac-rostructuren line (a), the speaker is able toproducewithrelative ase what he thinkssthefirstpropositionof the text,but immediatelynotices that he does not knowhowtocontinue.All she remembers s an incomplete topic,"thewhite" ("The white what?" it may be asked).Whileshe takesa very ong time to think boutwhatto saynext 11 sec.), her covertplanning sunsuccessful, or heformulation f "the white"

is not expanded, but is, instead,abandoned infavor of some information she has retainedabout thegrowth f the red berries.The excerpt given in number twenty-sevenshows a similarphenomenon. Moreover,thespeaker has already produced severalproposi-tionsfromthebeginningof the textwhen sherealizes what she has retainedfrom the text sincomplete.She signalsthisthroughhermeta-comment, "oh dear" in line (a), therebyac-knowledging erproblem, nd herobvious tem-porary oss of control overthe task.Essentially,her processing proceeds covertly, althoughthere s a prolongedfilledpause at the outsetof(b). The fact that this processingtakes placeand is completedcould hardlybe betterdocu-mented thanbyher "yes"produced at the endof (b). She poses a question and answers t her-self, hereby xpressing vertlyhat he now re-members something and thus knows how tocontinue withthe task.The illusionof comprehensionclearly s notattributable o the anguage backgroundofthesubjects.As theexamplesshow,bothL1 and L2speakersface thesame problemof notknowingwhatto saybut only realizing t at the timeofactually nitiating he production.Manyfewerutterancesreflectingncompleteknowledgeof



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Gabriela ppel ndJames Lantolf 449the text surfaced in the narrativeprotocols.However, the strategy, resorted to by allspeakers,was thesame; the formation f an im-mediate subtask, in order to maintain theoverallactivity fspeakingabout the text.CONCLUSION

No matterhow covert nd overtprocessesal-ternate r are distributed,he fact hat peakingis employed as a mediating device-as pre-dicted byVygotskian sycholinguistic heory-should be apparentfrom heforegoing nalysis,whichshowsquite clearlythat both L1 and L2speakersdeploythesame strategiesn attempt-ing to recall and understandwritten exts.Thenarrative assage presentedfewer roblemsforboth groups than did the expository ext,pre-sumably because, for one thing,the subjectswere able to use familiarity ith ypicalWesternfairy ales tohelp their omprehensionprocess.It is not therecall itself hat s significant, ow-ever.Rather, t iswhat we learn about compre-hension fromthe recall process,or better aid,from heattempt t recallof thetexts.Compre-hension ofwrittenmaterialneed not be a proc-ess thatoccurssimultaneouslywiththereadingprocess; furthermore, nderstanding textualmaterial,when it does happen, is not neces-sarily covertprocess,but can be externalizedas speech. It is to these issues thatwe addresstheremainderofour concludingremarks.One of the consequences of the post-mod-ernistmovement n both the human as well asthe social sciences is therecognitionofthepos-sibilityhatmeaningdoes notreside ntextsperse, but is created through ome typeof reader-text interactionthat begins with a set of lin-guistically onstructedmarks on a piece ofpa-per and ends with meaning created by thereader.10 he pointwe want to make, however,has not so much to do with he kind ofmeaningthat s constructed-although this s also a con-troversialissuea"-as itdoes withhow and whenthismeaningis created.Althoughpeople often do come awayfromthe reading processwithmeaning,we are notconvinced that failure to do so constitutespathologicalbehavior.Schrag (p. 85) proposesthathumanunderstanding nd explanationarenot the "mental acts of a lonelycognitive ub-ject," but are "conversational and communalendeavors." People can, and do, relyon eachother throughlinguisticinteractionwhen at-tempting o make sense of,or to comprehend,theworld.However, hisunderstandinghrough

communal activity oes not always ntail a re-sponse from he otherperson;rather,t s oftensufficient or the ndividualto speak to theselfvia private speech for"makingsense" to hap-pen. As we know, onversations re comprisedofutterances,which, ccordingto Bakhtin (22:p. 59-63),form he basicunit ofcommunicativeanalysis.But as we have argued,private peech,as a wayof mediatingmental activity,s alsocomprisedofutterances ntogeneticallyootedin communicative peech. In ourview, ll ofthismeans thatpeople can constructmeaningfroma text fter hereading process tself as ended.Theydo thisbyconversingwithothers,with heself in the presence of others (as the abovequote fromVon Kleist so succinctly uts it),or,as in thecase of our subjects,with he self n thepresence of no one other than the self.All ofthese activities re at theircore, social.As theproductionprotocolsoftheexpositorytext have shown, t is difficult o maintainthatindividualsunderstand piece oftextbyresort-ing primarily o matching ts content to somepre-existingbstract nowledgepattern.Rather,theyprocessthe textbydealingwith tscontentat the level of individual propositions, fromwhich it follows hat the activitys determinedby particularsratherthangeneralities, pointwhichhas also been emphasized byKieras. Aswe haveseen, speakers-whetherL1 or L2-tryto organize the propositions into a coherenttext,notnecessarily t the time ofreading,butalso at the time ofspeakingabout the text.Gambrell and Koskinenreportthe resultsofa recent tudy n childrenreadingtheirL1 thatlends support to our argumentregardingtherole of speakingin textcomprehension.Theseresearchers ound thatproficient,s well as less-proficient,fourth-gradereaders show signifi-cantquantitative e.g., number ofpropositionsrecalled) and qualitative (e.g., maintenanceofstoryine) improvementnreadingcomprehen-sion as a resultofretellingwhattheyhad read.The authorsreason thatretellingprovides theopportunityfor rehearsal of what was read,which n turn"adds moreinformation omem-ory" and "allowsthe reader to use a more so-phisticatedmethod ofmakingthetext nforma-tionpersonallymeaningful" p. 360). Engagingin the verbal reconstructionof a silently eaddiscourseprovidesreaderswith heopportunityto remember nd organizethetext nd therebyenhance theircomprehension.Fromthepedagogical perspective,fcompre-hensionas theconstruction fmeaning s medi-ated activity,hen it is essentialto incorporate



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450 The ModernLanguage Journal 78 (1994)into instructionalprograms post-readingctiv-ities thatgo beyondaskingstudentsquestionsabout the content of texts. These activitiesshould engage students n talking bout texts,not to ascertain if theyhave understood thetext,but as a means of helping them to con-structmeaningfrom the text. n keepingwithVygotsky'srofoundoppositionto thedecoup-lingoftesting rom eaching nd learning ctiv-ities, recall tasks-as a wayof understandingtexts hrough peaking- become morethan anassessment rocedure; theybecome an integralpartof the learningprocess.NOTES

1Vygotsky40: p. 163) formulated he ine of devel-opment ust outlined as the "general law of culturaldevelopment"which he characterized s follows,anyfunctionn the child'sculturaldevelopment p-pearstwice, r on twoplanes.First tappearson thesocial plane, and then on thepsychologicalplane.First it appears between people as an inter-pyschological ategory,nd thenwithin he child asan intrapsychologicalategory. his is equallytruewithregardtovoluntaryttention,ogicalmemory,the formation fconcepts, nd thedevelopment fvolition.

For a full ccountof thesociohistoricalviewofcogni-tivedevelopment ee Wertsch 41).2Following hework fFrawleynd Lantolf,Ahmedand McCafferty,mong others,have provided con-vincingempirical evidence in supportof the contin-uousaccess rinciple.3 Since 1979, largely due to the influence ofWertsch 42)-who followedFlavell's earlierrecom-mendation-vocalized, noncommunicativespeech,has been knownas privatepeech.4For a fullerdiscussion ofthe nteraction etweenprivate peech and taskrelevance, ee (34).5Vygotskyrgued thatthe privatespeech of chil-dren undertheage of threewouldbe less abbreviatedand more communicative n formthan the privatespeech of childrenat age seven or so. While someresearch has supported this claim, most has not,showing instead that the abbreviation of privatespeech is linked to factors therthan chronologicalage (34).6Despite thegeneralpopularity f recalltasks, rit-icism as to theirvalidityhas also been raised. Ball-staedt and Mandl, for example, insist thatwell-de-signedquestionsare a bettermeansofdeterminingreader's level of textcomprehension.Trabasso andSuh point out thatrecall measuresdo not allow forcomprehensionbeingstudiedon-line, incethemeas-ure is taken aftera person has read a text. n con-trast, hey avor he use of think-aloud rotocolsdur-

ing readingas a means of observing comprehensionas it is achieved.7A similarphenomenonis reportedby FrawleyndLantolf 13: p. 29) in whichchildrentypicallyxter-nalized standard beginnings of fairy tales, eventhoughtheelicitationtasktheyused did not suggestanything esembling fairy ale. The subjectshad toproceed in thisway,however, ecause it was theonlywaytheyknewhowto open a text and establish con-trol over the task.8 Vygotsky laimed that private speech typicallycontains new (i.e., psychologicalpredicates) ratherthangiven nformationi.e., psychological ubjects).WorkbyWertsch 42), however,howsthatVygotsky'sposition on the given/newdistribution in privatespeech is too strongand that n factprivate speechfrequentlyontainsgivenas well as new nformation.For an analysisof variation between pragmaticandsyntactic peech in L2 performance, ee (26).9 The circumstances nder whichspeakersactuallyexternalize their nner order is a potentially mpor-tant issue that requires further nvestigation.Mc-Cafferty's esearch suggeststhe possibility f a cul-turalfactor nfluencingthextent owhich a speakerwillproduce private peech.10 cholarsworkingn literary heoryhave for ometime known hatnarrativemeaningresides neither nthe text nor in the reader but in the interactionbe-tweenthe two (32; 36). An especiallypowerful llus-tration of how meaning is constructed n the inter-action between a reader and a scientific text isofferedbyConant (pp. 38-39). At theage of twenty-one, Thomas Edison managed to read Michael Fara-day's writings n electromagnetism,esulting n theformer'snvention fan inexpensive, ong-lasting il-ament forthe lightbulb. The mathematicianJamesClarkMaxwell,on the otherhand, afterreading theidentical set of Faraday's writings, stablished thefoundationfor theelectromagnetic heory f light.11 s themeaningconstructedbythe reader moreor less a reconstruction f the meaningencoded inthe textby tsauthor, r is itsomething lse?We sus-pect it is somethingelse. Texts and utterances,forthatmatter, o notconvey nformation o thereaderor listener. hey guide the readeror listenern creat-ing meaningforhimself/herself23: p. 308). Thus,we find ourselvesmore in agreementwith Rommet-veit,who maintainsthattextsand sentencesdo notcontain meaning but meaning potentialities,whichdo nothavesemanticvalueuntilthey re concretizedthrough the activityof reading or the activityofspeaking.

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GabrielaAppelandJamesP Lantolf 451encing the Degree of Reading Comprehen-sion." Knowledgeided nformationrocessing.d.E. van der Meer & J. Hoffmann.Amsterdam:North-Holland, 987: 119-39.3. Bernhardt,Elizabeth B. ReadingDevelopmentn a Sec-ondLanguage:Theoretical,mpirical, ClassroomPerspectives.orwood,NJ:Ablex,1991.4. Bol, Eduard, Giel Gresnigt& MarietteJ.de Haan."Speech Activityheoryand Reading Compre-hension Assessment."TheConstructfLanguageProficiency.pplications fPsychological odelstoLanguageAssessment.d. Ludo Verhoeven&JohnH. A. L. deJong.Amsterdam: ohnBenjamins,1992: 61-70.5. Bransford, ohnD. HumanCognition.earning, n-derstandingndRemembering.elmont,CA: Wads-worth,1979.6. Clark, Herbert H. & Eve V. Clark. PsychologyndLanguage.New York: Harcourt Brace Yovano-vich,1977.7. Conant,JamesBryant.TwoModes fThought: yEn-countersith cience ndEducation. ew York:Tri-dentPress,1964.8. Coughlan, Peter & Patricia Duff."Same Task,Dif-ferentActivities:Analysis f SLA Task from nActivityTheory Perspective." Vygotskianp-proachesoSecond anguageResearch. d. JamesP.Lantolf& GabrielaAppel. Norwood,NJ:Ablex,1994: 173-194.9. van Dijk, Teun A. Macrostructures.n nterdisciplinaryStudy fGlobal tructuresn Discourse,nteraction,andCognition.illsdale,NJ:LawrenceErlbaum,1980.10.- & WalterKintsch.StrategiesfDiscourse om-prehension.rlando, FL: Academic Press,1983.11.Flavell,JohnH. "Le langage riv." Bulletinepsycho-logie 9 (1966): 698-701.12. Frawley,William & James P. Lantolf. "PrivateSpeech and Self-Regulation: Commentary nFrauenglass nd Diaz. Developmentalsychology2(1986): 706-708.13.- &JamesP.Lantolf. Second Language Dis-course: A Vygotskyan erspective.Applied in-guistics (1985): 19-44.14. Gal'perin, PeterYa. "The Role of Orientation inThought. Soviet sychology8 (1980): 84-99.15. Gambrell,L. B. & P. S. Koskinen. "RetellingandtheReading ComprehensionofProficient ndLess-ProficientReaders." TheJournal fEduca-tionalResearch4 (1991): 356-62.16.Giv6n,Talmy."Universalsof Discourse Structureand Second Language Acquisition." LanguageUniversalsnd SecondLanguageAcquisition. d.WilliamE. Rutherford.Amsterdam:JohnBen-jamins, 1984: 109-36.17. . "FromDiscourse to Syntax:Grammar s aProcessingStrategy." yntaxndSemantics: ol 2.DiscoursendSyntax.d. TalmyGiv6n. New York:Academic Press,1979: 81-112.18.Glenberg,ArthurM. & WilliamEpstein. "Calibra-tion of Comprehension."Journal f xperimental

Psychology:earning, Memorynd Cognition 1(1985): 702-18.19.- ,AlexCherryWilkinson& WilliamEpstein."The Illusion of Knowing:Failure in the Self-Assessmentof Comprehension." MemoryndCognition0 (1982): 597-602.20. Goldman-Eisler, Frieda. Psycholinguistics.xperi-mentsn Spontaneouspeech. ondon: AcademicPress,1968.21. Hickmann,MayaE. "The Implications fDiscourseSkills nVygotsky'sevelopmentalTheory."Cul-ture, ommunication,nd Cognition: ygotskianer-spectives.d.JamesV.Wertsch. ambridge:Cam-bridgeUniv.Press,1985:236-257.22. Holquist,Michael. Dialogism: akhtinndHisWorld.London: Routledge,1990.23. H6rmann, H. ToMean-to Understand.roblemsfPsychologicalemantics.erlin: Springer-Verlag,1981.24. Kieras,David. E. "ThematicProcesses n the Com-prehension of Technical Prose." UnderstandingExpositoryext. d. B. K. Britton& J.B. Black.Hillsdale,NJ:LawrenceErlbaum,1985:89-107.25. Kintsch,Walter. InformationAccretionand Re-duction in Text Processing: Inferences." Dis-course rocesses6 (1993): 193-202.26. Lantolf, ames.P.& MohammedAhmed."Psycho-linguisticPerspectives n InterlanguageVaria-tion:A Vygotskyan nalysis."VariationnSecondLanguageAcquisition: sycholinguisticssues.Ed.Susan Gass, Carol Madden, Dennis Preston &LarrySelinker.Clevedon:MultilingualMatters,1989: 93-108.27. Lee, James.E "ConstructiveProcessesEvidencedbyEarlyStage Non-NativeReaders of Spanishin Comprehendingan ExpositoryText." His-panicLinguistics (1990): 129-48.28. McCafferty,teven.G. "The Use of Private peechbyAdult Second Language Learners:A Cross-Cultural Study." ModernLanguageJournal76(1992): 178-89.29. Nelson,Thomas O. &JohnDunlosky. WhenPeo-ple's Judgmentsof Learning (JOLs) are Ex-tremely ccurate at PredictingSubsequentRe-call: The 'Delayed-JOL Effect.'" PsychologicalScience (1991):267-70.30. Ochs, Elinor. "Planned and Unplanned Dis-course." SyntaxndSemantics:ol. 2.DiscoursendSyntax. d. TalmyGiv6n. New York:AcademicPress,1979:51-80.31. O'Connell, Daniel. C. Criticalssays nLanguageUseandPsychology.ewYork:Springer-Verlag,988.32. Polkinghorne, onald. E. NarrativenowingndtheHumanSciences.lbany:StateUniv.ofNewYorkPress,1988.33. Pressley,Michael, Elizabeth S. Ghatala, VeraWoloshyn& Jennifer irie. "SometimesAdultsMiss theMain Idea and Do NotRealize It: Con-fidence in Response to Short-AnswerandMultiple-Choice Comprehension Questions."ReadingResearchuarterly5 (1990): 232-49.



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452 TheModernLanguageJournal78 (1994)34. Privatepeech:rom ocial nteractiono elf-Regulation.Ed. RafaelM. Diaz& LauraBerk.Hillsdale, Y:Lawrence rlbaum, 992.35. Rommetveit, agnar.OnMessagetructure.Frame-workor he tudyfLanguage nd Communication.

London:Wiley,974.36. Schrag,CalvinO. Communicativeraxis nd the paceof ubjectivity.loomington:ndianaUniv. ress,1987.37. Smirnov,AlexanderA. Problemsfthe sychologyfMemory.ewYork: lenum ress, 973.38.Trabasso, om& Soyoung uh. "UnderstandingText: chievingxplanatoryoherencehroughOn-Linenferencesnd MentalOperationsnWorkingMemory."Discourserocesses6 (1993):3-34.39. Vygotsky,ev S. ThoughtndLanguage. ambridge:MITPress, 986.40. . "The GenesisofHigherMentalFunc-tions." TheConcept fActivityn Soviet sychology.Ed. JamesV. Wertsch.Armonk,NY: M. E.Sharpe, 981: 44-188.41.Wertsch, amesV. Vygotskynd the ocial ormationfMind. ambridge: arvard niv. ress, 985.42.- . "The Regulationf HumanAction ndtheGiven-NewrganizationfPrivatepeech."TheDevelopmentfSelf-RegulationhroughrivateSpeech.d. GailV.Zivin.NewYork:Wiley,979:79-98.43.Wolff,ieter. SomeAssumptionsbout econdLanguageTextComprehension."tudiesn Sec-ondLanguageAcquisition (1987): 307-26.APPENDIXNarrative extKing Arnold had a beautifuldaughtercalledGrace. On hertwentieth irthday e invited llthe princes fromthe surroundingareas. Hewanted her to choose one of themfor a hus-band. Princess Grace was sweet and quite un-spoiled fora person of her rank. Her onlyde-fect was that she couldn't make up her mindabout anything.Surrounded by twelveeagersuitors he was osingher mindtryingo decide.The kingbecame so angryover her indecision,he shouted, "I'm tired of your hesitation! Iswear to God I'll give you in marriage to thefirstman who entersthis room!" At thatexactmoment, tramp,who had managed to get bytheguards,burst nto thehall,yelling, I heardthat! You sworebyGod! The princess s mine!"The king couldn't go back on his word. Thebeggar got himself eadyfor the ceremony. v-

eryonewassurprisedto see how wellhe lookedin his borrowed clothes.After a fewdays,thenew husband told his wifethe time had comefor themto leave thepalace in orderto returnto hispoor house and humble work.After rav-eling for a timetheyreached a lovelycountry.Everywhere there were brooks, waterfall,orchards, and vineyards. Every time Graceasked who owned all this, her husband an-swered"PrincePhilip." At last they topped infront f a little tonehouse in theshadow of thecastle wall. He told Grace this was theirhouse.He had ajob inside thepalace but since t didn'tpaymuchhe hoped she wouldhelp inprovidingforthe household. She could bake bread andsell it n themarket lace. For a wholeyear, heylived thisway, oor buthappy.One eveningherhusband came home and said, "Tonight wehave a chance to make some extramoneyat aparty n the palace to welcome a newprincess.I'll leave now,and you oin me at eight. 'll bewaitingforyouat the main entrance." AteightGrace knocked at the frontdoor. She enteredthe hall. Everythingwas pitchdark. Suddenlyshe felt a strongembrace and a tender kiss.Avoice she recognized instantlyaid, "Welcometo yourpalace, Your Highness.The party s inyourhonor." (Total propositions= 92)ExpositoryextAt the bases of their 4-to 6-inch-long,glossygreen eaves,Arabian coffeeplantsbear clustersofsweetlycented,3/4-inchwhiteflowers nter-mittently hroughoutthe year; these matureinto pulpy, glisteningred, 1/2-inchberries.Withineach berryare two seeds, the "beans"fromwhichcoffee s made.Plants,whichdo notbegin to blossom or bear fruituntil theyarethree or fouryears ld,growupright o a heightof4 feetor more unlessthetipsof thestems repinchedoff.The Arabian coffeeplantdoes bestin curtain-filteredunlight, ight emperaturesof 60 to 65 degrees and day temperatures f70 degreesorhigher.Keep the soilevenlymoist;fertilize verytwo weeksfrom March to Octo-ber,monthly he rest of theyear.Tryto avoidtouchingthe eaves,which are thin and tender.Propagatefrom eeds any ime or from uttingsof upright-growing ips. Do not attempttopropagatefrom uttings fsidebranches, incethey generally develop into poorly shapedplants. (Total propositions= 57)

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Appel & Lantolf 1994 Speaking as Mediation - A Study of L1 and L2 Text Recall Tasks