Overview
Background
Dr Reza Arab is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the School of Languages and Cultures. His expertise lies in pragmatics, cultural linguistics, and intercultural communication, with a focus on how humour, metaphor, and language practices shape belonging, identity, and interaction across cultural and institutional contexts.
His research spans historical pragmatics, contrastive semantics, and discourse analysis, particularly in national and Indigenous settings. He has led and contributed to projects on humour in prison discourse, media representations, and political communication. Dr Arab also contributes to the English as an International Language (EIL) major at UQ.
Availability
- Dr Reza Arab is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy, Griffith University
Research impacts
Dr Arab’s research explores how language reflects and constructs cultural values, intersubjectivity, and social inclusion. His current projects examine Indigenous forms of humour and oral play, metaphors of national belonging, and the semantics of taste and humour-related vocabulary in Persian.
He is also leading a project titled Making Democracy Accessible: Rethinking Political Communication for Australia’s Migrant Communities.
His work draws on frameworks such as cultural linguistics, ethnopragmatics, and corpus-based discourse analysis. His research has been supported by funding from The University of Queensland, the Australian Linguistics Society, the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, and the European Commission mobility programme (Erasmus Mundus).
Works
Search Professor Reza Arab’s works on UQ eSpace
2025
Journal Article
Contextual clips: prioritizing neglected recordings in corpora
Rarrick, Samantha and Arab, Reza (2025). Contextual clips: prioritizing neglected recordings in corpora. Language Documentation and Conservation, 19, 67-81.
2024
Conference Publication
"It's funny that you've grown white": Negotiating identity and intersubjectivity on prison radios
Arab, Reza (2024). "It's funny that you've grown white": Negotiating identity and intersubjectivity on prison radios. 4th Conference on Discourse, Culture and Interaction, Brisbane, QLD Australia, 5-6 December 2024.
2024
Journal Article
Medical certificates: more than just paperwork
Delshad, Parvin, Ball, Lauren and Arab, Reza (2024). Medical certificates: more than just paperwork. Australian Journal of General Practice, 53 (11 Supplement), S123-S127. doi: 10.31128/AJGP-02-24-7154
2024
Conference Publication
The language of prison radios: humour and coping
Arab, Reza and Anderson, Heather (2024). The language of prison radios: humour and coping. 30th Australasian Humour Studies Network Conference, Brisbane, QLD Australia, 7-9 February 2024.
2024
Book Chapter
Metapragmatics of Maze (Taste) in Persian
Arab, Reza (2024). Metapragmatics of Maze (Taste) in Persian. The Handbook of Cultural Linguistics. (pp. 383-405) edited by Alireza Korangy. Singapore: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-99-3800-1_18
2024
Journal Article
Epistemic sentence-initial constructions as incongruity markers English “it is ironic [that]” vs Persian “bāmaze ast [ke]”
Arab, Reza (2024). Epistemic sentence-initial constructions as incongruity markers English “it is ironic [that]” vs Persian “bāmaze ast [ke]”. International Review of Pragmatics, 16 (2), 232-253. doi: 10.1163/18773109-01602003
2023
Journal Article
Book review: Thielemann, Nadine (2020). Understanding Conversational Joking: A Cognitive-pragmatic Study Based on Russian Interactions. John Benjamins.
Arab, Reza (2023). Book review: Thielemann, Nadine (2020). Understanding Conversational Joking: A Cognitive-pragmatic Study Based on Russian Interactions. John Benjamins.. European Journal of Humour Research, 11 (4), 128-132.
2023
Conference Publication
Contextual clips as neglected (meta)data: Insights on corpora from a humorous collaboration
Rarrick, Samantha and Arab, Reza (2023). Contextual clips as neglected (meta)data: Insights on corpora from a humorous collaboration. International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation, Hawaii, United States, 2-5 March 2023.
2022
Journal Article
Evaluating the credibility of storied matter in the context of agential realism
Lovell, Sue and Arab, Reza (2022). Evaluating the credibility of storied matter in the context of agential realism. Angelaki, 27 (6), 50-66. doi: 10.1080/0969725x.2022.2139018
2022
Journal Article
Cultural semantics of the ‘salt’ word in Persian
Arab, Reza (2022). Cultural semantics of the ‘salt’ word in Persian. International Journal of Language and Culture, 9 (1), 119-150. doi: 10.1075/ijolc.21038.ara
2022
Journal Article
Humour and belonging: a thematic review
Arab, Reza and Davis, Jessica Milner (2022). Humour and belonging: a thematic review. European Journal of Humour Research, 10 (2), 1-13.
2021
Other Outputs
To be with salt, to speak with taste: metapragmatics of playful speech practices in Persian
Arab, Reza (2021). To be with salt, to speak with taste: metapragmatics of playful speech practices in Persian. PhD Thesis, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University. doi: 10.25904/1912/4079
2019
Book Chapter
Ethnopragmatics of Hāzer Jāvabi, a valued speech practice in Persian
Arab, Reza (2019). Ethnopragmatics of Hāzer Jāvabi, a valued speech practice in Persian. Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis. (pp. 75-94) edited by Kerry Mullan, Bert Peeters and Lauren Sadow. Singapore: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_5
2018
Conference Publication
Persian light verbs in NSM explications: some issues
Arab, Reza (2018). Persian light verbs in NSM explications: some issues. Semantic Workshop 2018, Canberra, ACT Australia, 22-23 March 2018.
2017
Conference Publication
Semantics and ethnopragmatics of hazer javabi ('ready to respond') in Persian
Arab, Reza (2017). Semantics and ethnopragmatics of hazer javabi ('ready to respond') in Persian. The Australian Linguistics Society Conference, Sydney, NSW Australia, 4-7 December 2017.
2016
Journal Article
A review of agency and structure: Where does Rorty’s Ironist stand?
Arab, Reza (2016). A review of agency and structure: Where does Rorty’s Ironist stand?. European Scientific Journal, 12 (8), 36-51. doi: 10.19044/esj.2016.v12n8p36
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Reza Arab is:
- Available for supervision
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Media
Enquiries
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