The purpose of this paper is to investigate text comprehension from a sociocultural perspective and then, to find out more about the ways in which L2 readers comprehend and recall L2 texts. While many analyses of written recall protocols focus on propositional contents or an analysis of syntactic error, Sociocultural Theory provides us with an additional analytic tool: the linguistic properties of the recall protocols. This follows from Vygotsky's fundamental argument that speech, in addition to its communicative function, bears a cognitive, self-oriented function and thus, is used to plan and carry out mental activity. In this paper, we undertake an analysis of the written recall protocals produced by high-school learners of English as a foreign language. We argue that when faced with cognitively difficult situations, L2 readers often externalize their inner order as private writing in order to attain and maintain control of their mental activity in the task of reading and recall. In fact, the linguistic features of the written recall protocols reflect the underlying mental processes which L2 readers deploy in problem-solving situations.