Okuma parçalarında kelimeleri bağlamdan tahmin etme

This study investigated contextual guessing strategies employed by pre-intermediate students at Hacettepe University, Department of Basic English, and thedifferent strategies used by successful and unsuccessful guessers when dealing withunknown vocabulary. Data were collected through an in-class reading task, think-aloud protocols (TAPs) and retrospective interviews (RIs).The in-class reading task was administered to select three successful and threeunsuccessful guessers. TAPs and RIs were conducted with the selected guessers togather data on their strategy use. Transcribed TAPs and RIs were coded, and acontextual guessing strategies taxonomy was constructed. Frequencies andpercentages for each strategy in the taxonomy and percentages for the participants?guessing success in the in-class and TAP reading tasks were calculated.Findings of the study indicated that various strategies were employed to guessword meanings, and although both successful and unsuccessful guessers employediiithe same strategies, successful guessers used them less frequently. However,successful guessers? arriving at more correct guesses provided evidence that theywere more effective users of lexical inferencing strategies. Another findingillustrated that context and knowledge of the native language were the major sourcesfor word guessing.Key words: Guessing vocabulary from context, lexical inferencing strategies,successful and unsuccessful guessers, think-aloud protocols, retrospective interviews.iv