Mohammed, Nuru (PhD)Tekle, Yinager2018-07-172023-11-092018-07-172023-11-092003-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/9010Key Words - Modification - Compressibility - Interlanguage utterances - Target-like use The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students modified their interlanguage utterances towards comprehensibility and/or target -like use when they experienced difficulty in message comprehensibility during task- based interaction which involved only students. To this end, twelve students of Grade 12 at Enjibara Comprehensive, Preparatory and Technic School were selected and participated in the study. These students were paired up and made to interact using a picture-dictation task. Their interactions were tape- recorded, transcribed and analysed. The results of the anlyses indicated that the participants were able to successfully negotiate for comprehensibility by modifying their trigger utterances in 30(63%) instances of the one-signal negotiated interactions. The findings of the study also revealed that when the participants generated modifications of initial utterances, they made use of target-like forms in 70% of the cases. However, when the rate of frequency of these modifications which exhibited the use of target-like forms was compared with the total number of responses made to clarification requests, it was found minimum, i.e. 44%. Furthermore, the investigation made to see why the participants did not engage in the modification of their trigger utterances more often than they did resulted in the knowledge that a particular type of incomprehension signal called trigger repetition signal was responsible for this situation. This signal type was found less effective in prompting the participants to modify their trigger utterances. Of the 48 incomprehension signals made in the one-signal negotiated interactions, 23(48%) of them were trigger repetition signals. However, only 11(36%) modified comprehensible output instances were made in response to this signal type. The majority number of responses (64%) were made in reply to either trigger modification signals or explicitly marked signals which accounted for 25% (12) and 27% (13) of the total number of incomprehension signals, respectively. Finally, conclusions were drawn based on the findings of the study and suggestions were made for future research on the area.enModificationCompressibilityInterlanguage utterancesTarget-like useThesis