Amer Gheitury | Razi University of Kermanshah, Iran (original) (raw)
Papers by Amer Gheitury
Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice, Oct 23, 2009
Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic stru... more Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic structure of the words, has been reported to affect various aspects of second language performance including reading comprehension ability, spelling performance, etc. Yet, the concept has been far less treated with reference to l2 listening transcription. Thus, against this background, this study aims to investigate the link between MA and listening transcription ability of Iranian pre-university students. To this aim, 40 pre-university students participated in the study, and were assigned to two control and experimental groups. Both groups were first given three short listening passages to transcribe as the pre-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group, then, received five one-hour sessions briefing them on the morphological realization of English words. The two groups were then given three short listening passages to transcribe as their post-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-tests attested to the significant difference between the two groups, thus, supporting the relationship between MA and listening transcription ability. The study concludes with some suggestions as to the incorporation of MA into L2 learning programs.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Nov 1, 2021
Building upon Fairclough's (1989) stages of critical discourse analysis, i.e. the micro level... more Building upon Fairclough's (1989) stages of critical discourse analysis, i.e. the micro level text (discourse) analysis, and the macro level processing (ideology) and social (power) analyses, the present paper foregrounds some ideological facilitators of institutional power enactment, which are multimodal interruptions of professors in the last parts of M.A viva sessions. These verbal and nonverbal interruptions or discourse types are taken-for-granted by all the academic people, and these beliefs are ideologically held and transferred to others, since they are legitimately and naturally re-produced, though having the form of a coercive power. This paper presents a new understanding of power, by urging that power in the present study is both non-modern and coercive, as opposed to Van Dijk (1996), discussing the features of a modern power as being 'persuasive and manipulative' rather than 'coercive or incentive.' The data consisted of four main themes: (1) Verbal ...
Error is a common and yet predictable phenomenon in the process of learning a second language. Tr... more Error is a common and yet predictable phenomenon in the process of learning a second language. Traditionally, errors were seen as obstacles in learning a second language. So they should be avoided, but today errors are regarded as important factors in learning a second language. Language interferences are a category of errors that are the result of transferring a native’s language knowledge to the target language. Language transfer may occur in two ways: positive and negative transfer. Positive transfer occurs when there are similarities between source language and target languages. This transfer will help learning a second language. Negative transfer occurs in cases where there are differences between first and second languages and they cause language interferences. The present research, within the framework of "error analysis" based on Brown (2007) classification of errors, is intended to analyze the syntactic errors that result from the interference between Kalhori Kurd...
Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2005
Most studies within the area of genre analysis, particularly those conducted in Iran, have exclus... more Most studies within the area of genre analysis, particularly those conducted in Iran, have exclusively used text analysis. While such investigations have led to important understandings of generic features of texts, it can be argued that incorporating interview data for triangulation can lead to better understanding of generic features of texts. Along this line, this paper reports the results of a qualitative study of Persian RA abstracts written by native speakers of Persian. Taking a macro and a micro structure framework, this article will look into the ‘moves’ and ‘author identity’ in such RA abstracts. Two patterns are often associated with English academic prose: Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion and CARS (Create-a-research-space) (Lores, 2004). This, however, did not seem to be the case in most RA abstracts under study. The other feature of Persian RA abstracts to be explored is the absence of first person pronoun. One preliminary hypothesis would be to attribute this to...
Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic stru... more Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic structure of the words, has been reported to affect various aspects of second language performance including reading comprehension ability, spelling performance, etc. Yet, the concept has been far less treated with reference to l2 listening transcription. Thus, against this background, this study aims to investigate the link between MA and listening transcription ability of Iranian pre-university students. To this aim, 40 pre-university students participated in the study, and were assigned to two control and experimental groups. Both groups were first given three short listening passages to transcribe as the pre-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group, then, received five one-hour sessions briefing them on the morphological realization of English words. The two groups were then given three short listening passages to transcribe as their post-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-tests attested to the significant difference between the two groups, thus, supporting the relationship between MA and listening transcription ability. The study concludes with some suggestions as to the incorporation of MA into L2 learning programs.
The present study aims to figure out Kurdish imperfective aspect in the framework of minimalist p... more The present study aims to figure out Kurdish imperfective aspect in the framework of minimalist program. We try to determine not only the identity of the chain "χaeri:k bu:n", as a mechanism to make imperfective aspect in Kurdish, but also the way it combines with matrix verbs. Trying to find the identity of this chain, the findings reveal that "χaeri:k" belongs to adjectives, although it is not able to modify nouns like attributive adjectives. Following Baker (2003), we prove that lack of phi-features is recognized as the main reason for this unique behavior. Moreover, unlike Dabirmoghadam (2013) who considers "χaeri:k bu:n" as an auxiliary, we prove that this chain, made of the adjective "χaeri:k" and the axillary "bu:n", is a conjunct verb. Like Punjabi (Gill and Gleason, 1969), this verb is used to express imperfective Aspect in Kurdish. To find the way it combines with matrix verbs, we show that this verb joins the matrix verb in the structure of serial verbs. Following Muysken and Veenstra (2006), we reveal that "χaeri:k bu:n" is inside a minor Aspect Phrase (Asp P) which joins the main (Asp P) as an adjunct, repeating the level.
The Heythrop Journal, Jul 1, 2009
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
Journal of Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran, 2008
A main feature of recent scholarly work on language is its focus on identity, or the self, as a s... more A main feature of recent scholarly work on language is its focus on identity, or the self, as a social construct, or more particularly as a discursive product (Fairclough, 1992; Ivanic, 1998). One way of viewing the self as a social construct is through the notion ‘face’, i.e. “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself (sic) by the line others assume he (sic) has taken during a particular contact” (Goffman, 1967: 5). Building upon Goffman’s notion of ‘face’ as a social construct and the Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory and particularly their claim to universality of ‘face’, the present study is an endeavour to investigate the ways in which Iranian women’s identity, or ‘face’ wants, affect their linguistic interaction with the members of the opposite sex. This study was conducted in a case study format and the data thus obtained were analysed using QSR.NUDIST software. The subjects were seven women working at Iranian governmental offices whose daily interactions with their male and female customers were observed over a two week period. Eleven follow up interviews were conducted with the participants. The results indicate that Iranian women show a systematic awareness of the significance of their face wants in constructing their identity as ‘Iranian women’. Nevertheless, this negative face is not entirely socially motivated and is not likely to be explicable in accord with Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory which is often postulated to be universal.
Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, 2017
Despite numerous studies conducted to explore the manifestations of aphasia in different language... more Despite numerous studies conducted to explore the manifestations of aphasia in different languages of the world, language-specific patterns of aphasic patients in Kalhori as a southern dialect of Kurdish spoken in part of Kermanshah Province, Iran, remains largely unpacked. The present study aims at investigating language deficits of a forty-year-old Kurdish-Persian aphasic woman, here F. D., who was diagnosed with Broca's aphasia. Methods: To assess her linguistic competence, and more particularly, her knowledge of syntax and semantics, we administered a modified version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test in Kalhori. Results: Although she showed severe deficits in almost all modalities and levels examined, results indicated definiteness, prepositions and verb agreement with the subject as the most problematic areas. Discussion: While impairments to do with prepositions and parts of speech are expected features of aphasic patients, as far as the assessment of verbal morphology of Kalhori is concerned, results seem to replicate the results achieved by Nilipour et al. (2001) researching Persian bilingual aphasics.
Auditory and Vestibular Research, 2017
Background and Aim : An interesting area of research in deaf studies concerns the idea that vario... more Background and Aim : An interesting area of research in deaf studies concerns the idea that various language components and particularly different functional categories such as tense, mood, and agreement are not impaired to the same extent. The present study aimed to explore the performance of Persian speaking deaf individuals on tests dealing with five functional categories, namely complementizer/Wh-words, tense, aspect, mood, and agreement. Methods : This research was a cross-sectional study with two groups, first of which included 11 (4 boys and 7 girls) profoundly deaf students with hearing loss above 90 dB for both ears, aged between 14 and 22; and second group of 15 students with normal hearing with mean (SD) age of 14 (2) years. In addition to interviews, we also conducted sentence-completion and grammaticality judgment tasks to explore their performance in each category. Results : The deaf group performed significantly worse than hearing group in all the tests. Our results a...
Auditory and Vestibular Research, 2017
Background and Aims: Considering the fact that different components of linguistic knowledge are n... more Background and Aims: Considering the fact that different components of linguistic knowledge are not equally vulnerable, this study investigated the knowledge of argument structure of verbs in a group of deaf Persian speakers, as people who have been deprived of linguistic data during the early years of their childhood that is the critical period of language acquisition. Methods: In this study, the knowledge of verb arguments was examined through two tasks, one written (for 10 verbs) and one pictorial (for 10 verbs), in the two groups of deaf and normal hearing individuals, each of which consisting of 12 participants (6 girls and 6 boys). Results: The analysis of verb argument structure showed that the number of errors in pictorial tests and recognized verb arguments was not significantly different between the groups. However, the main challenge of the deaf participants was attributed to mapping the arguments of the verb onto syntactic level. Conclusion: The results showed that lingu...
Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, 2016
Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 2015
The following is an attempt to argue for an omnitemporal voice in the Qurʾan by investigating the... more The following is an attempt to argue for an omnitemporal voice in the Qurʾan by investigating the structure of the text which, as it will be shown, is in dialogue throughout. This dialogical structure which runs through almost all parts of the text is associated with a going-beyond of temporal context that brings the historical characters out of their setting to join the main speaker who is heard everywhere in the text, and who becomes atemporal by being present in all contexts.
Journal of psycholinguistic research, Jan 23, 2016
The present study aims to explore the semantic knowledge of a group of Iranian deaf individuals w... more The present study aims to explore the semantic knowledge of a group of Iranian deaf individuals who, due mainly to auditory deprivation did not acquire language normally in early years of their life. The participants were ten deaf and a matched number of hearing individuals as control group. A test of five tasks was administrated to assess their knowledge of vocabulary, collocation, semantic categorizations, semantic features, and proverbs. Although the results indicated a significant difference between the deaf and the hearing group, a between- group comparison of each task revealed no significant difference between the deaf and hearing participants in the number of errors in vocabulary, collocations, semantic categorization, and semantic features. The only task in which deaf participants did significantly worse than the control group was that of proverbs. Therefore, it could be argued that, language deprivation in early childhood does not have the same effect on different componen...
The International Journal of Humanities, Oct 23, 2014
The present study aims at exploring kinship terms and the different ways in which they are used t... more The present study aims at exploring kinship terms and the different ways in which they are used to refer to and address relatives and non-relatives in Hawrami, an Iranian language spoken in Paveh, a border city in Kermanshah province. The relevant linguistic and cultural data are obtained primarily by one of the researchers as a native speaker of the dialect and through field works and interviews with native speakers. In addition to analyzing consanguineal and affinal terms, and words for step-relatives, some space is also devoted to discuss pragmatic aspects of the words, particularly in contexts where the terms are used to address relatives as well as non-relatives. Considering the fact that the authors came across no serious study of Hawrami kinship terminology, the present study might be one of the first preliminary steps to a better understanding of the cultural and anthropological aspects of this Iranian dialect.
Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice, Oct 23, 2009
Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic stru... more Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic structure of the words, has been reported to affect various aspects of second language performance including reading comprehension ability, spelling performance, etc. Yet, the concept has been far less treated with reference to l2 listening transcription. Thus, against this background, this study aims to investigate the link between MA and listening transcription ability of Iranian pre-university students. To this aim, 40 pre-university students participated in the study, and were assigned to two control and experimental groups. Both groups were first given three short listening passages to transcribe as the pre-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group, then, received five one-hour sessions briefing them on the morphological realization of English words. The two groups were then given three short listening passages to transcribe as their post-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-tests attested to the significant difference between the two groups, thus, supporting the relationship between MA and listening transcription ability. The study concludes with some suggestions as to the incorporation of MA into L2 learning programs.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Nov 1, 2021
Building upon Fairclough's (1989) stages of critical discourse analysis, i.e. the micro level... more Building upon Fairclough's (1989) stages of critical discourse analysis, i.e. the micro level text (discourse) analysis, and the macro level processing (ideology) and social (power) analyses, the present paper foregrounds some ideological facilitators of institutional power enactment, which are multimodal interruptions of professors in the last parts of M.A viva sessions. These verbal and nonverbal interruptions or discourse types are taken-for-granted by all the academic people, and these beliefs are ideologically held and transferred to others, since they are legitimately and naturally re-produced, though having the form of a coercive power. This paper presents a new understanding of power, by urging that power in the present study is both non-modern and coercive, as opposed to Van Dijk (1996), discussing the features of a modern power as being 'persuasive and manipulative' rather than 'coercive or incentive.' The data consisted of four main themes: (1) Verbal ...
Error is a common and yet predictable phenomenon in the process of learning a second language. Tr... more Error is a common and yet predictable phenomenon in the process of learning a second language. Traditionally, errors were seen as obstacles in learning a second language. So they should be avoided, but today errors are regarded as important factors in learning a second language. Language interferences are a category of errors that are the result of transferring a native’s language knowledge to the target language. Language transfer may occur in two ways: positive and negative transfer. Positive transfer occurs when there are similarities between source language and target languages. This transfer will help learning a second language. Negative transfer occurs in cases where there are differences between first and second languages and they cause language interferences. The present research, within the framework of "error analysis" based on Brown (2007) classification of errors, is intended to analyze the syntactic errors that result from the interference between Kalhori Kurd...
Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2005
Most studies within the area of genre analysis, particularly those conducted in Iran, have exclus... more Most studies within the area of genre analysis, particularly those conducted in Iran, have exclusively used text analysis. While such investigations have led to important understandings of generic features of texts, it can be argued that incorporating interview data for triangulation can lead to better understanding of generic features of texts. Along this line, this paper reports the results of a qualitative study of Persian RA abstracts written by native speakers of Persian. Taking a macro and a micro structure framework, this article will look into the ‘moves’ and ‘author identity’ in such RA abstracts. Two patterns are often associated with English academic prose: Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion and CARS (Create-a-research-space) (Lores, 2004). This, however, did not seem to be the case in most RA abstracts under study. The other feature of Persian RA abstracts to be explored is the absence of first person pronoun. One preliminary hypothesis would be to attribute this to...
Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic stru... more Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA), defined as the ability to understand the morphemic structure of the words, has been reported to affect various aspects of second language performance including reading comprehension ability, spelling performance, etc. Yet, the concept has been far less treated with reference to l2 listening transcription. Thus, against this background, this study aims to investigate the link between MA and listening transcription ability of Iranian pre-university students. To this aim, 40 pre-university students participated in the study, and were assigned to two control and experimental groups. Both groups were first given three short listening passages to transcribe as the pre-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group, then, received five one-hour sessions briefing them on the morphological realization of English words. The two groups were then given three short listening passages to transcribe as their post-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-tests attested to the significant difference between the two groups, thus, supporting the relationship between MA and listening transcription ability. The study concludes with some suggestions as to the incorporation of MA into L2 learning programs.
The present study aims to figure out Kurdish imperfective aspect in the framework of minimalist p... more The present study aims to figure out Kurdish imperfective aspect in the framework of minimalist program. We try to determine not only the identity of the chain "χaeri:k bu:n", as a mechanism to make imperfective aspect in Kurdish, but also the way it combines with matrix verbs. Trying to find the identity of this chain, the findings reveal that "χaeri:k" belongs to adjectives, although it is not able to modify nouns like attributive adjectives. Following Baker (2003), we prove that lack of phi-features is recognized as the main reason for this unique behavior. Moreover, unlike Dabirmoghadam (2013) who considers "χaeri:k bu:n" as an auxiliary, we prove that this chain, made of the adjective "χaeri:k" and the axillary "bu:n", is a conjunct verb. Like Punjabi (Gill and Gleason, 1969), this verb is used to express imperfective Aspect in Kurdish. To find the way it combines with matrix verbs, we show that this verb joins the matrix verb in the structure of serial verbs. Following Muysken and Veenstra (2006), we reveal that "χaeri:k bu:n" is inside a minor Aspect Phrase (Asp P) which joins the main (Asp P) as an adjunct, repeating the level.
The Heythrop Journal, Jul 1, 2009
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
Journal of Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran, 2008
A main feature of recent scholarly work on language is its focus on identity, or the self, as a s... more A main feature of recent scholarly work on language is its focus on identity, or the self, as a social construct, or more particularly as a discursive product (Fairclough, 1992; Ivanic, 1998). One way of viewing the self as a social construct is through the notion ‘face’, i.e. “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself (sic) by the line others assume he (sic) has taken during a particular contact” (Goffman, 1967: 5). Building upon Goffman’s notion of ‘face’ as a social construct and the Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory and particularly their claim to universality of ‘face’, the present study is an endeavour to investigate the ways in which Iranian women’s identity, or ‘face’ wants, affect their linguistic interaction with the members of the opposite sex. This study was conducted in a case study format and the data thus obtained were analysed using QSR.NUDIST software. The subjects were seven women working at Iranian governmental offices whose daily interactions with their male and female customers were observed over a two week period. Eleven follow up interviews were conducted with the participants. The results indicate that Iranian women show a systematic awareness of the significance of their face wants in constructing their identity as ‘Iranian women’. Nevertheless, this negative face is not entirely socially motivated and is not likely to be explicable in accord with Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory which is often postulated to be universal.
Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, 2017
Despite numerous studies conducted to explore the manifestations of aphasia in different language... more Despite numerous studies conducted to explore the manifestations of aphasia in different languages of the world, language-specific patterns of aphasic patients in Kalhori as a southern dialect of Kurdish spoken in part of Kermanshah Province, Iran, remains largely unpacked. The present study aims at investigating language deficits of a forty-year-old Kurdish-Persian aphasic woman, here F. D., who was diagnosed with Broca's aphasia. Methods: To assess her linguistic competence, and more particularly, her knowledge of syntax and semantics, we administered a modified version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test in Kalhori. Results: Although she showed severe deficits in almost all modalities and levels examined, results indicated definiteness, prepositions and verb agreement with the subject as the most problematic areas. Discussion: While impairments to do with prepositions and parts of speech are expected features of aphasic patients, as far as the assessment of verbal morphology of Kalhori is concerned, results seem to replicate the results achieved by Nilipour et al. (2001) researching Persian bilingual aphasics.
Auditory and Vestibular Research, 2017
Background and Aim : An interesting area of research in deaf studies concerns the idea that vario... more Background and Aim : An interesting area of research in deaf studies concerns the idea that various language components and particularly different functional categories such as tense, mood, and agreement are not impaired to the same extent. The present study aimed to explore the performance of Persian speaking deaf individuals on tests dealing with five functional categories, namely complementizer/Wh-words, tense, aspect, mood, and agreement. Methods : This research was a cross-sectional study with two groups, first of which included 11 (4 boys and 7 girls) profoundly deaf students with hearing loss above 90 dB for both ears, aged between 14 and 22; and second group of 15 students with normal hearing with mean (SD) age of 14 (2) years. In addition to interviews, we also conducted sentence-completion and grammaticality judgment tasks to explore their performance in each category. Results : The deaf group performed significantly worse than hearing group in all the tests. Our results a...
Auditory and Vestibular Research, 2017
Background and Aims: Considering the fact that different components of linguistic knowledge are n... more Background and Aims: Considering the fact that different components of linguistic knowledge are not equally vulnerable, this study investigated the knowledge of argument structure of verbs in a group of deaf Persian speakers, as people who have been deprived of linguistic data during the early years of their childhood that is the critical period of language acquisition. Methods: In this study, the knowledge of verb arguments was examined through two tasks, one written (for 10 verbs) and one pictorial (for 10 verbs), in the two groups of deaf and normal hearing individuals, each of which consisting of 12 participants (6 girls and 6 boys). Results: The analysis of verb argument structure showed that the number of errors in pictorial tests and recognized verb arguments was not significantly different between the groups. However, the main challenge of the deaf participants was attributed to mapping the arguments of the verb onto syntactic level. Conclusion: The results showed that lingu...
Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, 2016
Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 2015
The following is an attempt to argue for an omnitemporal voice in the Qurʾan by investigating the... more The following is an attempt to argue for an omnitemporal voice in the Qurʾan by investigating the structure of the text which, as it will be shown, is in dialogue throughout. This dialogical structure which runs through almost all parts of the text is associated with a going-beyond of temporal context that brings the historical characters out of their setting to join the main speaker who is heard everywhere in the text, and who becomes atemporal by being present in all contexts.
Journal of psycholinguistic research, Jan 23, 2016
The present study aims to explore the semantic knowledge of a group of Iranian deaf individuals w... more The present study aims to explore the semantic knowledge of a group of Iranian deaf individuals who, due mainly to auditory deprivation did not acquire language normally in early years of their life. The participants were ten deaf and a matched number of hearing individuals as control group. A test of five tasks was administrated to assess their knowledge of vocabulary, collocation, semantic categorizations, semantic features, and proverbs. Although the results indicated a significant difference between the deaf and the hearing group, a between- group comparison of each task revealed no significant difference between the deaf and hearing participants in the number of errors in vocabulary, collocations, semantic categorization, and semantic features. The only task in which deaf participants did significantly worse than the control group was that of proverbs. Therefore, it could be argued that, language deprivation in early childhood does not have the same effect on different componen...
The International Journal of Humanities, Oct 23, 2014
The present study aims at exploring kinship terms and the different ways in which they are used t... more The present study aims at exploring kinship terms and the different ways in which they are used to refer to and address relatives and non-relatives in Hawrami, an Iranian language spoken in Paveh, a border city in Kermanshah province. The relevant linguistic and cultural data are obtained primarily by one of the researchers as a native speaker of the dialect and through field works and interviews with native speakers. In addition to analyzing consanguineal and affinal terms, and words for step-relatives, some space is also devoted to discuss pragmatic aspects of the words, particularly in contexts where the terms are used to address relatives as well as non-relatives. Considering the fact that the authors came across no serious study of Hawrami kinship terminology, the present study might be one of the first preliminary steps to a better understanding of the cultural and anthropological aspects of this Iranian dialect.