Iman Sheydaei
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Lecturer
7182 Helen C. White Hall
Biography
My name is Iman Sheydaei (you can call me Iman) and my pronouns are he/him. I am a sociolinguist by training, and I finished my Ph.D. at UW-Madison in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Thomas Purnell. After my Ph.D., I went to Michigan and completed a two-year tenure as a Visiting Research Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Michigan. My research is basically about Dearborn English and the interaction of language use and ethnic and local identities with a focus on Americans of Middle Eastern or North African descent. I very much enjoy talking to people about how they use their language resources to signal different affiliations and identities. I was born in Neyshaboor, Iran, and my first language is Farsi. I love UW-Madison with its vibrant and beautiful campus, my favorite place on campus is of course the terrace. When I am not teaching or doing research, I enjoy baking bread and spending time with my family.
Recent Publications
Sheydaei, Iman. 2024. Ethnolinguistic communities: The physical visibility of MENA Americans and the local
enregisterment of Dearborn English. Genealogy 8, 41.
https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8020041
Sheydaei, Iman. 2024. Ethnic visibility and ethnolinguistic repertoires: Dearborn English and the hijab. Proceedings of
the Linguistic Society of America 9(1), 5669. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5669
Sheydaei, Iman. 2024. Dearborn English: An ethnolinguistic repertoire for MENA Americans. Linguistic Geography 12 (2).
Sheydaei, Iman. 2023. The Low-Back-Merger Shift: Evidence from MENA Americans in the Upper Midwest and southern California: MENA Americans and the Low‑Back‑Merger Shift. English Today. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078423000299[Opens in a new window]
Sheydaei, Iman. 2023. Ethnic Rootedness and Social Affiliations at the Interface with Linguistic Performativity: Evidence from Americans of Southwest Asian or North African Descent. Languages 9(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010004
Sheydaei, Iman. 2021. Gender identity and non-binary pronoun use: Exploring reference strategies for referents of
unknown gender. Gender & Language 15(3), 369–393. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.18871
Research Interests
Sociolinguistics, ethnic identities, Dearborn, MENA
Courses Taught
ESL 117: Academic Writing I
ESL 118: Academic Writing II
English 314: Structure of English
English 416: English in Society