This volume represents a new and exciting initiative for the Journal of French Language Studies: the publication of its first issue featuring a theme paper with comments and a response to comments. Unlike collections of articles featuring independent contributions to a common research topic, this new platform for scholarly debate focuses on a single paper discussed by a group of experts. Rather than highlighting the diversity of approaches, the goal is to delve into the analysis of one particular research question by soliciting comments, suggestions and critiques of the methodology, the results and the possible implications for future research.