Comitology between Political Decision-Making and Technocratic Governance: Regulating GMOs in the European Union

The EU’s comitology system is generally considered to be an effective mechanism for facilitating efficient policy implementation while at the same time ensuring a degree of Member State control over the process. However, if this assessment is applicable to most areas of routine decision-making, the regulation of GMO authorizations by the European Commission, which also falls under comitology, presents a markedly different picture. The article shows the particular problems that occur in this field, outlining the involvement of a number of different actors (comitology committees, Council, European Commission and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and their interaction in what has become a complex and protracted policy process. The articles identifies a number of key issues – the reliance of the Commission on EFSA’s scientific expertise, the weakness of political accountability due to divisions among the Member States, the difficulties of the European Commission to achieve compliance with European and international rules – and discusses the impact that these have on the legitimacy, efficiency and effectiveness of policy-making in this area. The article concludes that, due to the problems arising from the particular arrangement of interests and procedures in this area, the operation of comitology in the regulation of GMOs is highly problematic

The Convention on the Future of the EU: The European Commission and Treaty Reform

Treaty reform has become an almost constant feature in the European Union. This article challenges the traditional intergovernmentalist assumption that state representatives are the only significant actors in this process by looking in some detail at the role played by the European Commission. The article first sets out the institutional framework within which the Commission participates in the negotiations. It then demonstrates that the Commission's influence – even though limited in the actual decision-making – is evident with respect to agenda-setting and legitimation of treaty reform. Finally, we look at the impact of the convention method on the nature of treaty reform

Irrigation areas and irrigation water consumption in the Upper Ili Catchment, NW-China

This study was mainly based on the interpretation of satellite imagery, supported by only limited field truth data. This approach had to be followed because only very little information on the Upper Ili Catchment was available to the research team. At the same time, however, detailed information on the Upper Ili Basin is essential for the overall framework of this project. The Upper Ili catchment is the main source of the water discharged to the Ili-Balkhash Basin which is mainly located on Kazakhian territory. Hence, the water balance of the Ili-Balkhash Basin crucially depends on the water supply from the Upper Ili region. --

Intervención del Estado y mercado negro en el sector oleícola durante el primer Franquismo

El sector agrario español estaba sujeto a una intervención amplia por parte del estado en los años 40. Los productores y los consumidores reaccionaron creando un mercado negro. Para el caso del aceite de oliva, se estima como consecuencia la necesidad de incrementar los datos sobre la producción hasta un 12% y el hecho de que el mercado negro de aceite constituyera hasta un 20% de la producción como promedio entre 1940 y 1950. Estos resultados indican que la situación económica de los olivareros no era peor que en los años 30. Finalmente, la conclusión estriba en la dificultad de responder a la pregunta de si se puede justificar la intervención estatal en el sector. Aunque la oferta de aceite de oliva per cápita permanecía estable, había un incremento en la demanda y, al mismo tiempo, un descenso en la oferta de tanto de grasas animales como de grasas y aceites de uso industrial.During the early Franco years, the agrarian sector was subjected to widespread control by the state. Farmers and consumers reacted by creating a large black market. In the case of olive oil, a consequence of this was that production figures had to be increased to an estimated 12%, and up to 20% of output was sold in the black market. These results indicate that, in general, the economic situation for farmers was at least as good as that in the 1930s In conclusion, it is difficult to say whether the intervention in the olive sector was a reasonable policy. Although the supply of olive oil per capita remained stable, there was simultaneously an increase in demand and a decrease in the supply of animal fats as well as of fats and oils tor industrial use

THE STATUS OF NON-NATIVE SPEAKER IN THE CONTEXT OF ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

This paper examines the complex concept of native and non-native speaker, a dichotomy which is central to studies of language acquisition, and inevitably informs almost all of language teaching and assessment. The non-native speaker has often been side-lined in linguistic theory. In areas such as applied and sociolinguistics, it has often been dismissed as a poor imitation of a native speaker. However, in the specific area of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), it has been argued that the contribution of the non-native speaker is more relevant than that of the native speaker (Kachru 1985; Seidlhofer 2005, 2011). In this paper, we will examine the concepts of native and non-native speakers and pose the question of how far the concept of native speaker is appropriate or useful in the era of English as a global lingua franca used among predominately non-native speakers. We will first look at its place in general linguistic theory (Chomsky 1965/1968/1981; Pinker 1994). Then, by analysing the processes of first and second language acquisition (Selinker 1972; Krashen 1982; Krashen and Terrell 1983), we will identify the differences between native and non-native speakers. Next, we will discuss the arguments that have been made against elevating the native speaker to the status of sole legitimate point of reference for language teaching and assessment (Cook 1999; Graddol 2007; Rinvolucri 2001). After this, we will examine the contributions that non-native speakers can play in the evolution of language: the way that specific languages (in this case English) – popularly perceived as the property and heritage of native speakers – can be seen to have been shaped not only by native speakers but also by the contribution, direct and indirect, of non-native speakers (Brutt-Griffler 2002; McWhorter 2007; Christiansen 2021). Finally, we will argue that the native – non-native speaker distinction is not useful in the context of ELF, it being a variation of English which manifests itself differently on each occasion depending on the linguistic competence of the speakers and their respective linguacultural backgrounds. Rather, we argue, one should talk about a third category, that of the highly proficient user (as identified by Graddol 2007), to describe all those speakers, native or non-native of English, who have reached an advanced level in those linguistic, communicative competences that are required to perform effectively specifically within ELF

THE ROLE OF AFFINITY IN ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE ENGLISH OF NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS

To examine the issue of how far ELF can be endonormative, we report on a matched-guise test experiment (Lambert et al. 1960) measuring NNES ELF users’ reactions to ostensibly different speakers, some of whom identified as NES, others as NNES ELF users from the outer circle. Two speakers – one NES, the other a highly proficient NNES (Graddol 2010) – made various short recordings in a studio. Each of these was modified using specialist software to make them sound like different people without affecting intelligibility as regards pronunciation. On a Likert scale, respondents rated how happy they would be to speak like the persona in question. The object was to identify patterns in the way that the features of Nativeness, on the one hand, and Affinity on the other, interacted to affect attitudes to different manifestations of English, and whether any affinity effect (our provisional term) can be shown to exist as a possible alternative to the nativeness principle (Jenkins 2007; Seidlhofer 2001, 2011). That is, whether ELF users may use other ELF users that they find attractive as models for language use rather than the idealized NES

The Internet as a Global Speech Community: Towards Plurilingualisms and English Lingua Franca

Languages have traditionally been associated with specific ethnic groups confined to defined geographical areas and sometimes to certain discourse contexts or domains of use (e.g. French for diplomacy). Increasingly, telecommunication and most recently internet has meant that languages are no longer tied to particular geographical territories but may be found in various non-territorial dimensions. This has created a fluid, constantly changing global speech community in which different languages co-exist and interact in myriad ways and to varying degrees depending on the speakers’ backgrounds. Within this complex scenario, not only does English become in effect translocal language (Pennycook 2007, Blommaert 2010) but English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) variations gain in influence, very possibly replacing traditional native-speaker varieties as the international standard (Seidlhofer 2011, Christiansen 2015). Thus, they will increasingly reflect the plurilingual reality in which speakers typically have at their disposal a repertoire of different languages. English, we can predict, will thus become in itself a microcosm of the wider linguistic situation especially on media such as the internet. In this paper, we will look at how far internet is leading to greater plurilingualism on the part of individuals and at how far ELF variations are emerging to reflect the multifarious linguistic backgrounds of members of the internet-based global speech community. To do this, we will analyse data from a variety of recent sources, comprising both big data (Pimienta et al 2010; Ronen et al. 2014) and specific case studies from samples of different typologies of websites (e.g. railway companies)

MALPRACTICE IN ONLINE VERSUS ONSITE COMPUTER-BASED LANGUAGE TESTS Reflections from the COVID lockdown experience

Computer-based tests provide a fast, efficient and cost effective means of assessing students, especially if they can be administered online (Chalhoub-Deville 2002; Suvorov, Hegelheimer 2013). Traditionally, they are administered in controlled conditions, where supervision and invigilation (or proctoring) can be conducted in much the same way as it is with paper-based tests. Around the world, the COVID emergency (2020-21) led to the sudden closure of educational institutions and a shift online of all teaching and testing. In this paper, we will examine the effects of such a change in the context of two specific university courses where a set of bespoke Moodle-hosted computer-based (CB) tests were adapted from a controlled and supervised onsite context to a much freer online context using a general business communication platform (Microsoft Team). We compare the results of over 4,500 tests (Lexis and Use of English, Translation, Reading, Listening and Writing Tasks: the first four marked automatically, the last manually) taken in both onsite and online contexts to identify differences in results between both testing environments. The aim is to provide some hard data to ascertain how far online distance-invigilated tests taken under only the most basic supervision can be adequate substitutes for more traditional formats especially in view of both their positive aspects (e.g. greater accessibility and inclusivity for students) and their negative ones (e.g. the greater opportunity for malpractice)

THE DYNAMICS OF QUESTION / ANSWER MOVES IN ELF SPOKEN DISCOURSE IN CROSS-CULTURAL MIGRATION DOMAINS

In this paper we will analyze question and answer moves in a corpus of approximately eight interviews taken from transcripts published on the site Storie migranti (www.storiemigranti.org). Our focus will be the different ways questions are employed and formulated to elicit ideational information (Halliday 2004) and also the way in which answers to these same questions are formulated. A major point of interest within crosscultural migrant domains (Guido 2008) and in particular in the context of asylum seekers using ELF is how the delicate balance of the demands of questioner and answerer are negotiated and satisfied, or not, as the case may be. In addition to purely lingua-structural concerns, we also consider pragmatic considerations within the specific theoretical contexts of relevance (Sperber, Wilson 1986) and conversation implicatures (Grice 1975). With an in-depth analysis of individual cases, we will seek to identify the instances where answers satisfactorily provide the information elicited by the question in view of being able to describe successful strategies both from the perspective of questioner and answerer within the specific context of spoken interaction between ELF users in cross-cultural migration domains