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영어

This is a qualitative study of the close analysis of L2 speakers’ intrapsychological speech from the Vygotskyan perspective of mediation. The term ‘intrapsychological speech’ in this study embraces the forms of private and inner speech that occur as a result of cognitive processing during an L2 reading task. Seven Korean L2 speakers of English majoring in biology in a U. S. college participated in one session of three hours self-study activity that mainly involvesd L2 reading. Reading aloud is one of the noticeable patterns of intrapsychological speech observed in this study. In detail, we were able to note several types in reading aloud; such as, the forms of repetition in L2, manipulation of L2 pronunciation, use of L1, oral translation of L2 text into L1, and note-taking. The higher incidence of reading aloud occurred when the reader had difficulty understanding the text, and reading aloud facilitated participants’ resolving problems of comprehension of the difficult text. Therefore, we can conclude that the use of intrapsychological speech during L2 reading provides us with an insight into the readers’ meaning-making process.