Task-based language teaching is believed to facilitate language learning opportunities that arise when performing tasks. Although the synergies between task and learner variables in this process rose to prominence recently, little has been undertaken to explore the individual difference-task interaction in textual meaning-making activities. This study thus explored how second language (L2) writing performance under different task complexity conditions was impacted by L2 writing willingness to communicate (WTC) and L2 writing proficiency. Participants with upper-intermediate English proficiency were recruited following a within-between-participant factorial research design. The results confirmed that WTC significantly influenced syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency in L2 writing, suggesting that conative individual differences (IDs) might play a more prominent role in L2 writing than cognitive IDs. Among the sub-components of WTC, motivational predispositions performed better than emotional, cognitive, and writing-specific features in affecting L2 writing performance. Additionally, WTC played a more pronounced role in the complex task, supporting the claim of Robinson’s cognition hypothesis that ID effects are more evident in complex tasks than simple tasks. However, no interaction between L2 writing WTC and proficiency was found. Theoretical and pedagogical implications were offered on considering both L2 WTC and task complexity in task-based writing instruction.

Teju Cole’s Open City is one of several recent postcolonial novels that narrate the refugee crisis and the threats to nonhuman species in a way that takes seriously the parallels and interspecies relationships. I am interested in the extent to which novels that explore kinships across boundaries of kind manage to make a space for the nonhuman in the anthropocentric form of the novel. In the case of Open City, I argue that Cole’s figural approach offers a means of formalizing the human representation of nonhuman others as a problem and allows readers to make connections across species boundaries even as the novel raises the specter of moral stasis through the cosmopolitan narrator’s failure to take an ethical stance with respect to those in search of refuge, human or not. This failure is a human one, and in offering an anatomy of such a failure, Cole invites scrutiny of cosmopolitanism as much as of the novel form’s anthropocentrism.

This paper explores how traditional Chinese vegetarian concerns were adapted to exploit new possibilities in the early twentieth century. Specifically, I examine attempts to promote the vegetarian diet through monosodium glutamate, ventures to manufacture vegan soap, and the emergence of a vibrant culture of urban vegetarian restaurants, all of which were actively supported by the socially conservative monk Yinguang 印光 (1862–1940).

The current study presents an HPSG analysis for deliminative verbal reduplication in Mandarin Chinese. We provide a detailed description of the phenomenon. After discussing reduplication’s interaction with verb classes and aspect markers, we argue that it is better analyzed as a morphological rather than a syntactic process. We put forward a lexical rule for verbal reduplication in Mandarin Chinese, and the different forms of reduplication are captured in an inheritance hierarchy. The interaction between verbal reduplication and aspect marking is handled by multiple inheritance. This analysis covers all forms of deliminative verbal reduplication in Mandarin Chinese and has none of the shortcomings of previous analyses.

This article attempts a first historical periodisation of the checkered history of the French Southern Islands in the Indian Ocean. Beginning with early extractive activities during the 18th and 19th centuries and followed by colonial ambitions during the first half of the 20th century, the article also discusses the more recent efforts of the French government to reinforce sovereignty in the form of permanent bases, especially during the 1950s and 1960s. The most recent period covered of scientific affirmation and ecological restoration (1970s–2006) introduces a solid historical perspective on the still ongoing efforts (from 2006 onwards) of reinforced patrimonialisation and environmental protection of the French Southern Islands. Throughout all periods, our main attention is directed towards various forms of projects. Indeed, the project perspective allows to uncover largely forgotten ambitions and shows that the history of the French Southern Islands is closely connected to larger historical developments in the entire Antarctic and sub-Antarctic region.

In contemporary politics, the rise of a leadership style centered on “gaslighting”—persuasion through systematic besmirching, belittling, and the inversion of shared norms—poses profound challenges to democracy. This essay traces the conceptual roots of gaslighting and its uptake as a style of leadership, explores its distinguishing features compared to other manipulative political tactics, and uses the current American situation (that is, the rhetoric of Donald Trump and JD Vance) alongside international examples to illustrate its consequences. Against this backdrop, “adaptive leadership” is advanced as a normative counterweight—one that invites honest engagement with adaptive challenges and bolsters civic trust. The contrast illuminates the stakes for democratic culture as gaslighting erodes the very fabric of orientation, accountability, and mutual respect. It is no exaggeration here to speak of a battle for the soul of democracy.