Based on the hypothesis that not only linguistics competence must be considered during the Test development, but also pragmatics competence should be evaluated, the present study was conducted to develop a scale to assess learners’,pragmatic proficiency. To this end, this study developed the pragmatics Test of multiple-choice Discourse Completion task (MDCT) in the case of four primitive speech acts of request, thanks, apology, and refusal for Iranian EFL learners. In the first phase, 155 Iranian university students were asked to write the situations at university, home or in society, in which they apologize, thank, request something and refuse an offer or invitation. In the second phase, to ensure the naturalness of the situations, another group of students were asked to rate the selected situations based on the frequency of occurrence of these situations in their everyday life. In the third phase, the Tests were reviewed by several native speakers and TEFL colleagues. Finally, the items MDCT were developed by the researchers and in the final step, two pilot Tests were conducted. The findings indicated that the scale was reliable, valid and appropriate to measure Iranian EFL learners’,pragmatic knowledge.

This study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties (validity, reliability and factorial structure) of the Persian version of the Washington University Sentences Completion Test (WUSCT; Hy & Loevinger 1996) for evaluating ego development. Two hundred and eighty nine undergraduate students (143 females, 146 males) were selected from different disciplines of Tehran University using convenience sampling. The guilt subscale of the Personal Feeling Questionnaire (Harder & Zalma, 1990) and the Chronic Self-Destructiveness Scale (Kelley, et al., 1985) were used for studying divergent validity. The results indicated that the WUSCT had appropriate internal consistency (ranged from 0/118 to 0/326). The Cronbach α and 2-weeks Test-reTest reliability were.781 and.876, respectively. The negative correlation of the WUSCT with self-destructiveness demonstrated the divergent validity of the WUSCT. The WUSCT could discriminate the group with high ego development from the group with low guilt and self-destructiveness which indicated the discriminant validity of the WUSCT. The factorial analyses indicated that the WUSCT was unidimensional. The findings suggest that the Persian version of the WUSCT is a valid and reliable tool for assessing ego development.

This study investigates the use of apologizing strategies by speakers of Azerbaijani Turkish in Iran. One hundred and twenty (60 male and 60 female) randomly selected speakers of Azerbaijani Turkish from Tabriz participated in a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and returned 2400 apology speech acts. The DCT included 20 scenarios representing 10 Discourse situations. The acts were analyzed based on the categorization suggested by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984), which included Illocutionary Force Indicating Device, Taking on responsibility, Explanation, Offer of repair, Promise of forbearance, Concern for the hearer, and Nonverbal strategies. The findings indicated that the highly preferred apology strategies among the participants are explanation and offer of repair. Moreover, there was a statistically significant association between the independent variables (the participants’ age, gender, and level of education) and the choice of apology strategies. However, such an association was only significant for some Discourse situations; e.g., in interaction with relatives that are in an equal status with the participant and in an adult-child interaction where the participant has a superior status. 

Introduction The present study was carried out to standardize the grammar of the story in the narrative Discourse of Persian speakers with communication disorders for clinical examination. Psycholinguistic approaches have already been used in Iran to evaluate some aspects of Discourse among people with speech and language disorders. The Persian Narrative Discourse Test (PNDT) was developed based on Fredericksen's model, and its validity and reliability were evaluated. This Test is designed to quantify sentence complexity, coherence, and overall cohesion (referential, relational, lexical cohesion, deletion, and substitution). Since Fredriksen's model is suggested to investigate the damage levels of narrative Discourse in the processing stage of conceptual structures, the evaluation of story grammar is also proposed. Accordingly, the present study aimed to include the evaluation scale of story grammar in the Persian version of the Test. Methods Using a Likert scale to evaluate the narrative, a five-level questionnaire was used to measure the clarity of the elements of the four narrative parts using Thorndyke's hierarchical model: the scene is composed of time, place, and characters. The topic consists of the title of the narrative and the main incident. The plot consists of the characters’ efforts, the results of these efforts, the resolution consists of the characters' intentions, and the result of the narrative. In the above-mentioned questionnaire, six linguists and six speech and language pathologists were consulted to determine whether the proposed questions cover the observed behavioral domain (story grammar) and are simple and tangible for all examiners, and also whether the questionnaire has high content validity index based on the experts’ opinion. A second part of the research was conducted to determine the differential validity, examining story grammar as it relates to retelling stories and creating improvised narratives by two groups of elementary school students with and without hearing impairment in normal elementary schools. The reason for choosing the age of 6 to 12 years (primary school age) for this assessment is the evolution of the critical stages of narrative development at the end of five years of age so that children can organize integrated chains of events with a map and subsequent events and related endings. Thirty-six elementary students in regular schools were evaluated, including 18 students with hearing impairments (accessible sample) and 18 without hearing impairments (random sample). All hearing-impaired students had completed oral or verbal auditory rehabilitation for more than two years before entering the normal school assessment, and none had any physical, mental, movement, or psychological problems. Newsha Tests were accomplished for hearing, language, and speech development, including listening skills, language comprehension, expressive language, speech clarity, cognitive skills, social skills, and motor skills. At least the low domain score was achieved to develop the desired skills in normal children. During the Test, audiologists checked the hearing aids and cochlear implants of all children and verified that the device and its settings were correct. Children were homogeneous in terms of age, sex, socioeconomic level of schools, parents' education, and an intragroup comparison of hearing aid users, and cochlear implant users was made before the main assessment. No significant differences were observed in any of the two tasks between the two subgroups. A comparative assessment was conducted between two groups: One with hearing impairment and the other without. Data were collected by recording two oral narrative tasks, including telling a previously heard story and improvising a narrative. After transcribing, the data were entered into SPSS version 26 for statistical analysis. An internal evaluator and an external evaluator also evaluated the reliability of the Test. Results A significant difference was found between the average scores of hearing and hearing-impaired participants in narrative creation and story retelling, and in both cases, the hearing group scored significantly higher than the hearing-impaired group. The current research compared the scores separately to determine where this difference comes from, as seen in Table 1. Table 1. Comparing the average scores of the hearing (n=18) and hearing-impaired (n=18) groups by separating the parts of the story grammar Story grammar Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Difference Pooled St Dev T df P Setting Improvising a narrative Hearing Group 0.490 0.279 0.066 0.130 0.261 1.49 34 0.145 Hearing-impaired group 0.360 0.243 0.057 Telling a previously heard story Hearing Group 0.537 0.291 0.069 0.147 0.232 1.9 34 0.066 Hearing-impaired group 0.390 0.151 0.036 Theme Improvising a narrative Hearing Group 0.440 0.509 0.120 0.205 0.388 1.58 34 0.133 Hearing-impaired group 0.235 0.205 0.048 Telling a previously heard story Hearing Group 0.620 0.212 0.050 0.1 0.168 1.79 34 0.083 Hearing-impaired group 0.520 0.106 0.025 Episodes Improvising a narrative Hearing Group 0.523 0.025 0.006 0.377 0.031 36.980 34 0.000 Hearing-impaired group 0.147 0.0135 0.008 Telling a previously heard story Hearing Group 0.627 0.040 0.010 0.214 0.038 17.080 34 0.000 Hearing-impaired group 0.413 0.035 0.008 Resolution Improvising a narrative Hearing Group 0.625 0.106 0.025 0.385 0.0756 15.280 34 0.000 Hearing-impaired group 0.240 0.014 0.003 Telling a previously heard story Hearing Group 0.775 0.078 0.018 0.405 0.0683 17.790 34 0.000 Hearing-impaired group 0.370 0.057 0.013   No significant difference was found between the average scores of hearing and hearing-impaired groups in creating a narrative or retelling the story in the scene and topic sections. However, in the episodes and resolution sections, the hearing group scores significantly higher than the hearing-impaired group. Conclusion A significant difference in the story grammar between retelling and improvising narratives aligns with research that shows hearing-impaired children, even with the aid of modern technology, continue to face challenges in advanced language usage. This is particularly evident when they create narratives compared to their peers with less severe hearing difficulties. A Test developed based on Thorndyke's hierarchical story grammar model was found to be effective for evaluating the subsections of the story grammar by people with communication differences, and its validity and reliability were also confirmed. Ethical Considerations Compliance with Ethical Guidelines In the current research, we adhere to ethical principles by obtaining written and informed consent from participants and providing them with essential information about the research process. We ensure confidentiality by coding participant names and allowing them the freedom to withdraw from the study at any time for any reason. The results of the Tests carried out by each participant to their parents and the necessary guidance to improve children's narrative skills without imposing any financial costs. Moreover, the research has an approval code from the Ethics Committee of Tarbiat Modares University with code: IR.MODARES.REC.1400.072, Approval date: 2021-06-12. Authors' Contribution Design, data collection, and study preparation by the first and second authors. Statistical analysis by the third author. Supervised the research method by the fourth author and the final review by the second and fifth authors. Funding The authors have not received funding for this manuscript. Acknowledgments The present article is taken from the PhD thesis of the first author of the research at Tarbiat Modares University; therefore, the authors feel it is their duty to express their utmost gratitude for the sincere cooperation of all the students participating in the present study and their parents, as well as school administrators. Conflict of interest The authors reported no potential conflict of interest.

This research, conducted in the field of pragmatics and sociolinguistics, aims at the describing and analyzing the type and number of request strategies in Kurdish, Mokri dialect, regarding the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of social factors as the gender of user and the power of addressee. To this end, for data collection, a revised version of Discourse Completion Test (DCT) including 12 situations was distributed among 130 (65 males and 65 females) Mokri Kurdish speakers in Mahabad city located in the southern of West Azabayejan province. They were in the age range of 25 to 35, holding at least a bachelor degree. Besides the questionaire, direct observation consisting of 7 hours of everyday normal conversations in various situations and different contexts was employed to collect more natural and reliable data. As the main theoretical framework for the present study, Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) coding scheme used by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) was employed and Brown and Levinson’ s (1987) politeness theory was used as the peripheral framework. Results of the research showed a significant difference across genders in selection of the type of request strategis and the power of addressee had a significant effect on choosing the strategies. It was also shown that power and gender had an interactive effect on the selection of these strategies. According to supporting strategies of the "negative and positive faces" in Brown and Levinson’ s (1987) theory, it was found that Kurdish people as the members of one cooperative group mostly employed positive face saving acts in their communications and interactions. The research findings indicate that it is about time for linguists as educational planners to consider these sociolinguistic differences in teaching Kurdish language to non-Kurdish people in order to prevent any probable mishaps in their communications and interactions with Kurdish speakers.

This study aimed to examine cross-cultural differences in performing refusal of requests between Persian native speakers (PNSs) and English native speakers (ENSs) in terms of the frequency of the semantic formulas. Also examined in this study was whether Persian EFL learners would transfer their L1 refusal patterns into the L2, and if there would be a relation between their proficiency level and the transfer of refusal strategies. To do so, 66 PNSs (studying Archeology and Law) and 59 ENSs from both genders filled out the Persian and English versions of the same Discourse Completion Test (DCT), respectively. Also, the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used to form 2 groups consisting of 61 high proficient (HP) Persian L2 learners and 81 low proficient (LP) ones, who all filled out the English version of the DCT. The refusals strategies used by the participants were turned into semantic formulas, and then classified into 3 groups of Direct, Indirect, and Adjuncts to Refusals. Findings showed no significant differences in the use of Direct refusal strategies between the ENSs and the PNSs. Unlike the PNSs who outweighed the ENSs in the use of Indirect strategies, the ENSs employed substantially more Adjuncts to Refusals. Findings also indicated the occurrence of pragmatic transfer in the use of Indirect and Adjuncts to Refusals by both the HP and LP L2 learners. However, the LP group was found to transfer their L1 refusal patterns more than the HP group.

This study investigated the effects of sociocultural instruction on developing the speech act of criticizing. The participants were second language learners in two English learning classrooms as experimental and control groups. The participants in the experimental group operated under the basic principles of the socio-cultural approach with interactive tasks, cooperation, and scaffolding. They were asked to read and criticize a peer’ s work orally. For this group, the teacher provided fined tuned instruction and mediated individual tutor feedback. For both the experimental and control groups, the learners’ pragmatic development was measured through pre-Tests, immediate and delayed postTests performance of Discourse Completion and role-play Tests. The researchers analyzed the results of Tests through statistical procedures such as paired and independent t-Tests. The results revealed that the experimental group signifi cantly improved and performed better than the control group, indicating the successfulness of sociocultural instruction. Next, the researchers interviewed the participants to find about their feelings. After interviewing the participants, the researchers found positive feelings of learners about this kind of instruction including low degrees of stress, high levels of excitement, fun, motivation, and clarity that provided another evidence for worthwhile impacts of sociocultural instruction.

Background and Objective: The Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) is one of the tools used to assess personality. Personality assessment helps to make decisions, diagnose, and choose the right treatments. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the standardization of some psychometric properties of the WUSCT among Iranian students. Materials and Methods The statistical population of this descriptive survey study included 287 medical students who were studying in Tehran, Iran, in the academic year 2015. Internal consistency, Test-reTest reliability, and inter-rater agreement were used to assess the reliability; moreover, the convergent validity was utilized to evaluate the construct validity of the WUSCT. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 21). Results: The results of the present study indicated that the acceptable internal consistency of the WUSCT (P<0. 001). Furthermore, the Test re-Test reliability of the WUSCT was determined at 0. 86 (P<0. 001). The correlation between the total scores of the two examiners was obtained at 0. 88 (P <0. 001). Moreover, the results of the convergent validity indicated the strongest correlation between ego development and ego strength (P<0. 001). Conclusions: The results of the present study indicated that the WUSCT had the appropriate and acceptable validity and reliability in Iranian society. Accordingly, this Test can be an appropriate tool for measuring personality.

This study examines the efficiency of pedagogical intervention in raising L2 pragmatic awareness of the Iranian EFL learners. More specifically, it seeks to investigate the difference between explicit and implicit instructions in improving pragmatic appropriateness of the English refusals by adult Persian native speakers in an EFL classroom context. Fifty-four participants, with approximately the same level of linguistic proficiency, were randomly divided into three groups of Control, Explicit, and Implicit. As the Control group was provided with activities irrelevant to the objectives of the study, the two Experimental groups received two different instructional treatments. While the Explicit group was presented with metapragmatic explanations, direct feedback, and explicit awareness-raising instruction on pragmatic features of English refusals, the participants in implicit group were provided with indirect instruction and implicit awareness-raising activities. All three groups took a multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) as a pre and post Test, before and after the six-session instructional period. The results revealed that instruction improves pragmatic appropriateness of the EFL learners' refusals. Explicit pedagogical approach, in particular, was proved to be more efficient in raising L2 pragmatic awareness of the Iranian English learners. The findings of this study may have helpful implications for material developers and teachers in EFL classrooms.

The eccentric graph Ge of a graph G is a derived graph with the vertex set same as that of G and two vertices in Ge are adjacent if one of them is the eccentric vertex of the other. In this paper, the concepts of iterated eccentric graphs and eccentric Completion of a graph are introduced and discussed.