Seyyed Hatam Tamimi Sa'd

Purdue University West Lafayette | Purdue · Department of Linguistics

In this study, we propose that gesture might be a precursor to language as shown by data from bimodal bilinguals.

Two hypotheses frequently cited within the frameworks of language origin are (i) vocal origins and (ii) gestural origins (van Schaik, 2016). The vocal hypothesis argues that language arose among hominins as a result of vocal learning after hominins acquired the ability to learn vocalizations socially due to changes that occurred in ape vocalization...

A debated issue in psycholinguistics is whether both languages are active in the bilingual mind that hosts them. We examined this issue in bimodal bilinguals, i.e., individuals competent in one spoken language and one sign language. Signed productions and story-telling data pertaining to declaratives, wh-questions, and negatives from Iranian biling...

A debated issue in psycholinguistics is whether both languages are active in the bilingual mind that hosts them. We examined this issue in bimodal bilinguals, i.e., individuals competent in one spoken language and one sign language. Signed productions and story-telling data pertaining to declaratives, wh-questions, and negatives from Iranian biling...

This dissertation presents a analysis of negation in a spoken language, i.e., Khuzestani Arabic (KhA), and a sign language, i.e., Sadat Tawaher Sign Language (STSL). STSL emerged naturally without any intervention such as deaf education after a man lost his hearing around sixty years ago in a small village named Sadat Tawaher located in southwester...

Almost sixty years ago, a 20-year-old man named Hanash living in a small farming town named Sadat Tawaher in southwest Iran lost his hearing. Since Hanash had not gone to school, he had no reading or writing literacy and thus writing was not an option for communication with him. There was no deaf school in Sadat Tawaher or nearby, either. The solut...

We examined hypothetical conditionals (HCs) and counterfactual conditionals (CCs), in a young homesign system ST Homesign that emerged ∼60 years ago in southwestern Iran. Our findings show that ST Homesign lacks a functional lexical sign ‘if’ with which to overtly mark conditional clauses and marks conditionals with NMMs; Furthermore, in HCs, the c...

Typological research sorts languages by their basic syntactic word order (subject, verb, object). Sign languages appear restricted to SOV and SVO, due to their use of visual modality and signing space (Napoli & Sutton-Spence, 2014). Young languages offer a potential opportunity for investigating these hypotheses (Senghas, Coppola, Newport, & Supall...

Previous research confirms that individuals frequently become subject to various forms of discrimination for a variety of reasons. This study aimed at revealing the incidence of discrimination toward English as a Foreign Language students, the grounds on which it happens, its ad-verse effects on students as well as potential solutions to it. The da...

The current study explores the linguistic interactions of Iranian Arabs by taking into account such factors and concepts as interlocutor power, solidarity, politeness and impoliteness and other variables including gender, age, kinship and others. It attempts to delineate what constitutes polite as well as impolite linguistic behavior in light of th...

The current study set out to assess the sociopragmatic appropriacy of compliment response (CR) knowledge of Iranian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) through data elicited by means of a written discourse completion task (DCT). The participants were comprised of 29 university students, aged 19–28, who were randomly selected and asked t...

Vocabulary constitutes an essential part of every language-learning endeavour and deserves scholarly attention. The objective of the present study was three-fold: 1) exploring Iranian English language learners’ Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLSs), 2) examining language learners’ perceptions of vocabulary learning, and 3) exploring Iranian English...

The global spread of English has led to the emergence of non-native varieties of English in the world and this has, as a consequence, prompted many scholars to discuss and acknowledge World Englishes (WEs, i.e., non-native varieties of English) in addition to World English (WE; i.e., English as an international language). The present study set out...

The study examines perceptions of nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English toward accented speech and its relation with identity from the perspective of English as an international language (EIL). The data were collected from 51 Iranian EFL learners by means of questionnaires and interviews. The findings revealed the participants’ considerable uncertai...

The present qualitative study sought to explore the relationship between English language learning and identity reconstruction from the viewpoints of Iranian language learners. The data were collected by means of focus-group interviews with forty-five male intermediate learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). To define the concept of identi...

The present qualitative study sought to explore the relationship between English language learning and identity reconstruction from the viewpoints of Iranian language learners. The data were collected by means of focus-group interviews with forty-five male intermediate learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). To define the concept of identi...

This quasi-experimental study adopted a pretest/posttest design to investigate the effect of instructional intervention in teaching polite refusal strategies explicitly on Iranian EFL learners' performance of the speech act of refusing. The participants, consisting of 24 male elementary EFL learners aged 12-18, responded to a discourse completion t...

The current ethnographic study sought to investigate the discourse strategies that Arab interlocutors employ to euphemize tabooed subjects raised in interaction. The objective was threefold: a) to identify topics deemed as tabooed by Arabs, b) to find out the strategies used to euphemize tabooed topics and c) to account for the reasons behind the s...

This article reports on a study that set out to investigate how Iranian EFL learners respond to compliments in English. The data were collected using a discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of a variety of situations that required the participants, 26 EFL learners (13 males and 13 females) to respond to compliments directed at them. The data w...

This study examines the role of the use of the L1 in EFL classes from the perspective of EFL learners. The triangulated data were collected using class observations, focus group semi-structured interviews and the learners’ written reports of their perceptions and attitudes in a purpose-designed questionnaire. The participants consisted of sixty mal...

According to Schumann’s (1986) Acculturation Model, accent acts as a means of the learner’s identification with either his/her mother tongue culture or the target language culture and affects his/her effort to learn English as a target Language. Taking up a critical stance, the present study, thus, aimed at investigating the role that learner attit...

This study is an attempt to examine the possible effect that exposure to English has had on the use of refusal strategies in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners compared with those of non-English learners when refusing in their native language, Persian. The sample included 12 EFL learners and 12 learners of other academic majors including...

Inter-language pragmatics (ILP) and politeness have long been of considerable significance in language learning research. The present study investigated the notion of polite and impolite requests among Iranian EFL learners. The participants, 30 MA students of English, responded to a discourse completion task (DCT) realizing the speech act of reques...

One of the key aspects in the use of the speech act of request as proposed by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) in their CCSARP study is the perspective in which requests can be encoded. Motivated by the dearth of literature on this point, this study set out to investigate the request perspectives of a sample of 61 request utterances elicited through...

This qualitative study is an investigation into Iranian EFL teachers' and learners' perceptions of good and poor language learners with an eye on where the beliefs of these two groups coincide or diverge. The study was an attempt to scrutinize the most commonly held beliefs on successful and unsuccessful language learners by EFL teachers and learne...

The current investigation sought to explore the power relationships prevailing among Iranian university EFL learners and their professors. Thus, in keeping with their main preoccupation in the present scrutiny, the researchers strived to gauge the possible influence of learners' age and educational level on the power relationships holding between t...

The current study investigated the extent to which Iranian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners are sociolinguistically competent in performing the speech act of refusal. The data were elicited form a sample of 30 Iranian EFL learners, 15 males and 15 females, who responded to situations in a discourse completion task (DCT). The...

This paper discusses, from the viewpoint of Iranian EFL learners, the advantages and disadvantages that implementing Internet-based EFL teaching in Iran can offer as well as the challenges and obstacles lying in the path of the implementation of such a program of language teaching. The data were collected from a total of 86 EFL learners (aged 14 to...

The current study investigated the extent to which Iranian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners are sociolinguistically competent in performing the speech act of refusal. The data were elicited form a sample of 30 Iranian EFL learners, 15 males and 15 females, who responded to situations in a discourse completion task (DCT). The...

Successful communication is the joint product of linguistic as well the sociolinguistic competence, with the latter competence denoting appropriateness which is closely associated with politeness. The present study aimed to investigate the politeness strategies employed by Iranian EFL learners in the speech act of apology. Data were collected from...

The current study aimed at delving into EFL teachers' perspectives towards culture and the different sources and procedures of teaching it in the classroom with a focus on the qualifications of the teachers. The participants consisted of 95 Iranian language teachers. For the purposes of this study, the participants were divided into three qualifica...