Research and Innovation

Self-report questionnaires on individual differences (IDs) are central to second language acquisition (SLA) research, yet the qualitative procedures that generate their item pools remain largely unexamined. Drawing on argument-based validation theory and cross-disciplinary measurement guidelines, this study offers the first systematic methodological synthesis of how that formative phase is reported. We reviewed 85 peer-reviewed SLA studies published between 1983 and 2025 that developed or substantially revised an ID scale, coding each along four dimensions: transparency, theoretical grounding, methodological rigor, and content-validity evidence. Four research questions examined how qualitative item development was documented, which methods and frameworks were employed, how item inclusion was justified, and how content validity was assessed. Results expose a pervasive reporting gap: Only 25% of studies described any qualitative data collection, 16% referenced an explicit theoretical framework, 2% linked draft items to participant quotations, and only one study reported a numerical content validity index. Details on coder agreement, reflexivity, and response-process evidence were nearly absent. These gaps threaten construct representativeness, invite cultural bias, and undermine validation claims. We translate our findings into a seven-section reporting checklist for the qualitative phase, with implications for editorial policy, doctoral training, and future meta-analyses.

This book describes five ubiquitous discourse markers in Persian talk-in-interaction. It begins with a critical overview of literature on discourse markers and discusses why (neo)Gricean approaches have failed to provide descriptions that are grounded in and demonstrably relevant to how speakers actually use them in interaction, thus limiting their pedagogical value for teaching second language interactional competence.

Advocating the adoption of Conversation Analytic methodology (CA) to ground descriptions in empirical data, the book discusses the key fundamental structures of conversation implicated in the use of these markers. It then proceeds to describe in detail the interactional work of the five markers in separate chapters.

The book further addresses the challenging task of teaching discourse markers to second language learners. Uniquely, it offers a comprehensive pedagogical model informed by current knowledge about second language acquisition as well as CA descriptions, which can guide teachers and materials developers across all languages. It will be of interest to teachers and language learners (especially of Persian) worldwide, as well as academics and students in the field of Applied Linguistics.

Julio Cortázar: cartas y (otras) lecturas reúne una serie de textos en los que Saúl Sosnowski, uno de los más destacados críticos del latinoamericanismo contemporáneo y fundador de la revista Hispamérica, reconstruye su vínculo intelectual y personal con Julio Cortázar. A partir de cartas, entrevistas, intercambios y otros materiales, el libro recorre las redes culturales e intelectuales que marcaron una época, así como los debates, afinidades y tensiones que atravesaron el campo literario latinoamericano. Como señala Adriana Rodríguez Pérsico en el prólogo, en ese entramado documental sobresale la historia de una amistad que, con el paso del tiempo, transformó la relación inicial entre discípulo y maestro en un diálogo entre pares.

Julio Cortázar: Letters and (Other) Readings* brings together a series of texts in which Saúl Sosnowski, one of the most prominent critics of contemporary Latin Americanism and founder of the journal *Hispamérica*, reconstructs his intellectual and personal bond with Julio Cortázar. Drawing from letters, interviews, exchanges, and other materials, the book traces the cultural and intellectual networks that defined an era, as well as the debates, affinities, and tensions that swept through the Latin American literary field. As Adriana Rodríguez Pérsico points out in the prologue, standing out within this documentary network is the story of a friendship that, over time, transformed the initial relationship between disciple and master into a dialogue between peers.

Merediz conducts a meticulous analysis of key texts from the early modern period, focusing on their ideological dimension through a rarely considered lens: the Canary Islands as a central node around which a series of back-and-forth negotiations within the colonial Atlantic network pivot.

Arsenjuk and Resmini’s contribution examines Trumpian imagery as the visual form of a politically disarticulated reactionary coalition. It argues that Trumpism achieves unity through spectacle: a proliferating and serial image regime that compensates for the loss of political articulation. Drawing on Benjamin, Jesi, Jameson, and Wajcman, the essay shows how contemporary Trumpian visual culture, especially in its AI-generated forms, is structured by seriality, discontinuity, and hypercrisis rather than by the dialectical temporality of historical fascism. Trumpian imagery thus appears as an unstable attempt to produce myth under conditions that render myth impossible. The article proposes seriality as a key category for understanding the historical specificity of Trumpist spectacle.

Sufism, for many of its medieval followers, was the “religion of love.” God was the beloved and the Sufis, his lovers. To become a Sufi meant to become a lover. In this book, Matthew Thomas Miller pursues the radical analytical implication of this amatory metaphysics: If God and his divine secrets can only truly be known in their fullest through the experience of love, then we must analyze how it feels to be a Sufi on the Path of Love. Leveraging insights from the history of emotions and affect theory, this study examines key Sufi ritual practices and poetics to show the central role that affect plays in the process of constructing Sufi subjectivity and knowledge production. It explores the felt dimension of medieval Sufism and why feeling—especially, like a lover—was so important for coming to truly know God and his divine secrets.

Navigating the world of academic writing and publishing can be overwhelming. This book provides the antidote. Written by a team of authors who are at different stages of their careers, this book provides hands-on advice and strategies to turn academic writing from a daunting experience to a joyful journey. It gives a complete overview of the publishing process, from how to write an academic paper, chapter or book, to areas that are often overlooked, such as indexing a book, working with images and copyright, dealing with advertising and disseminating the book, ethical issues, open access, predatory publishing, and much more. The chapters are short and clearly labelled, with questions for reflection and discussion at the end of chapters, making them a handy reference for readers to dip in and out of. Demystifying aspects of academic writing, academic writers will come away with the confidence and knowledge to 'publish and thrive.'

In Spolsky [(2009). Language management. Cambridge University Press] tripartite framework of language ideology, management, and practice, the relationship between ideology and language is typically assumed to be one-to-one. Interpreting the tripartite relationship differently, this study challenges that assumption by examining Arabic learning and use in Ningxia, China, within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We identify two coexisting ideologies – the Hui community’s heritage language ideology and the BRI-driven foreign language ideology – both privileging Arabic, and analyse their materialization in explicit and implicit language policies. Through case studies of three institutions – a public university, a community-based vocational school, and a private business – we demonstrate how these ideologies initially fostered Arabic learning and use but later generated negative impacts as their scopes and objectives diverged. This analysis reveals a two-to-one relationship between ideologies and language, highlighting the intricate interplay of multilingualism, ethnicity, and policy in the intersection of domestic and global affairs. Our findings underscore that the politics of multilingualism in language policy is shaped not only by language choice but also by ideological, ethnic, and geopolitical dynamics, reflecting tensions between Sinicization and internationalization in China’s Hui community. These insights contribute to nuanced understandings of language policy dynamics and the sociolinguistics of Islam.

A milestone in the cinematic representation of neoliberalism, Maren Ade’s 2016 breakout hit Toni Erdmann offers a wide-ranging depiction of the contemporary global economy and its reshaping of our psychic and social lives. Emerging from the German art cinema movement known as the Berlin School, Toni Erdmann achieved unexpected success with audiences worldwide, attaining theatrical release in at least 37 countries and winning more than 50 international awards. Yet the film’s viral popularity and critical acclaim proved perplexing to some commentators, especially given its oxymoronic status as a German comedy; its sprawling, nearly three-hour duration; and its formally unremarkable, even nondescript style.

The Celluloid Atlantic changes the way we look at American and Italian cinema in the postwar period. In the thirty years following World War II, American and Italian film industries came to be an integrated, transnational unit rather than two separate, nation-based entities. Written in jargon-free prose and based on previously unexplored archival sources, this book revisits the history of Neorealism, World War II combat cinema, the "Western all'Italiana," and the career of John Kitzmiller, the African American star who made Italy his home and was the first person of color to win the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival.  Giovacchini argues that the waning of the Celluloid Atlantic in the early 1970s was due to the economic policies of the first Nixon administration, specifically its important, but largely neglected, Revenue Act of 1971, as well as to the ideological debates between Europeans and Americans that intensified during the American intervention in Vietnam.