Academic literature on the topic 'Arkansas State Press'

In early 1981, the 73rd General Assembly of the State of Arkansas in regular session passed Senate Bill 482 without debate. Governor Frank White, immediately signed the bill, admitting that he hadn't read it, and it became state law as Act 590, the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act.” A suit on behalf of 23 plaintiffs was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on May 27, 1981, and a trial before Federal Judge William Overton was scheduled for October and then postponed until December, 1981. The trial began on December 7, 1981, and it received national attention. The ACLU called well-known expert witnesses in both religion (Bruce Vawter, George Marsden, and Langdon Gilkey) and science (Francisco Ayala, G. Brent Dalrymple, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan). The state's witnesses were creationists associated with the Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda University, California (Harold Coffin, Ariel Roth), and the Creation Research Society, Ann Arbor, Michigan (Wayne Friar, Margaret Helder, Donald Chittick, Robert Gentry). Its “star” witness, at least in the eyes of the press, was Chandra Wickramasinghe, University College of Wales. The trial did not involve any of the high profile creationists, such as Henry Morris or Duane Gish, from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) in San Diego, even though it was disclosed that Wendall R. Bird, an attorney associated with (ICR), had written the act. Both sides called local educators. Judge Overton issued his ruling and an injunction permanently prohibiting enforcement of Act 590 on January 5, 1982. The state did not appeal his ruling.

Colletotrichum chlorophyti was first reported in the United States in 2009 on soybean petioles (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) collected from Alabama, Illinois, and Mississippi (4). This species has not been reported to infect seed, unlike other Colletotrichum spp. (2). From the 2012 growing season, soybean seeds obtained from the National Agricultural Statistics Service representing 151 seed lots from growers' fields in 11 states were assayed by plating them on acidified potato dextrose agar (APDA). Before plating, seeds were surface disinfected by sequential immersion in 50% ethanol for 30 s, 20% commercial bleach for 1 min, two 1 min rinses in sterile distilled water, and kept at 25°C in the dark for 1 week. Infected seeds from one seed lot from Arkansas produced colonies similar to Colletotrichum spp. This seed lot was visually examined and divided into asymptomatic or discolored symptomatic seeds. Because of the limited number of seeds in the seed lot, 20 seeds that asymptomatic and 40 seeds that appeared symptomatic were assayed on APDA as previously described. Asymptomatic seeds did not produce any dark fungal colonies. Among the symptomatic seeds, five appeared to have flecked light gray seed coats with some larger grayish to black and irregular spots where cracks were sometimes formed, and they developed small black fungal masses or became entirely dark on the surface. Five fungal isolates were obtained from these infected seeds. On APDA, the isolates initially produced white to pink smooth-margined colonies, turned black with age, produced no aerial growth, and filled a 9 cm diameter petri dish within 10 days. DNA of one isolate was extracted for PCR and sequencing of the ITS region with ITS1 and ITS4 primers (3). From the BLAST analysis, the sequence was 100% identical to C. chlorophyti isolates, IMI 103806, and CBS 142.79 (Accession Nos. GU227894 and GU227895, respectively). To test for pathogenicity, the fungus was sub-cultured on APDA and eight APDA discs (4 mm diameter) were set into 50 ml potato dextrose broth inside a 250-ml flask and shook at a speed of 100 rpm at room temperature (24 ± 1°C) for 10 days. The mycelium was then weighed, fragmented with a blender, and resuspended in sterile distilled water to a final concentration of ~40 mg/ml. The mycelial suspension was sprayed on soybean seedlings of cv. Williams 82 (two plants/pot) at growth stage V1 to V2 until runoff. The inoculated plants were kept in a moist chamber (>90% relative humidity) for 48 h at 24 ± 1°C in the dark, and then transferred to normal plant growing conditions. At 5 days post-inoculation (dpi), the leaves showed typical symptoms caused by C. chlorophyti, including necrosis on the edge of young leaves and petioles, formation of irregular dark brown lesions, and leaves became scrolled (4). Setose acervuli, curved conidia with tapered ends (21.4 ± 1.1 × 3.8 ± 0.3 μm), and chlamydospores were found on the detached symptomatic leaves after 12 dpi. No perithecia formed. The morphology matched the description of C. chlorophyti (1,4). To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. chlorophyti in Arkansas and the first time that this species has been reported infecting seed of any plant. References: (1) S. Chandra and R. N. Tandon. Curr. Sci. 34:565, 1965. (2) G. L. Hartman et al. Page 13 in: Compendium of Soybean Diseases, APS Press, St. Paul, MN, 1999. (3) T. J. White et al. Page 315 in: PCR Protocols. A Guide to Methods and Applications. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1990. (4) H.-C. Yang et al. Plant Dis. 96:1699, 2012.

Anthony Giddens and a number of other social theorists and commentators see reflexivity as the guiding principle of modern self-identity (Giddens 1992; Beck). According to this thesis, reflexivity brings, at least potentially, a new level of knowledgeability, control and orderliness to one's experience of self. It ushers in a demystified world, geared towards calculability. In Giddens' own words, "....reflexivity refers to a world increasingly constituted by information rather than pre-modern modes of conduct. It is how we live after the retreat of tradition and nature, because of having to take so many forward-orientated decisions" (Giddens & Pierson 115). Reflexivity involves "the routine incorporation of new knowledge or information into environments of action that are thereby reconstituted or reorganised" (Giddens 1991 243). Life is characterised by planning and goal-orientation. In Giddens' terminology it is a "project", involving "the strategic adoption of lifestyle options, organised in terms of the individual's projected lifespan" (1991 243). The future is "colonised", knowledge is "reappropriated", and the self is a "trajectory". Relationships are increasingly transparent and democratic, always open to negotiation. These sentiments are repeated often, and lie at the heart of neo-liberal analyses of the contemporary self. While such accounts undoubtedly reflect certain aspects of self-identity in the modern world, it also neglects many areas of experience relevant to the contemporary self - tradition, culture and concepts of fate, the unconscious and emotions - for example, and our experience of our own self is far less clear-cut than Giddens and others suggest. Selfhood as a vehicle for grasping the world in relation to itself is experienced far more ambiguously, during both the more mundane passages of daily life, and in the more "fateful moments" of one's life. It is characterised as much by a lack of definition and precision as it is by a calculable boundary and trajectory. Giddens & the Reflexive Self Giddens ends up with a rationalist caricature of the processes that make up self-identity. His comments on the formation of values, reproduced here, are a case in point: It wouldn't be true to say we have values that are separate from the increasingly reflexive nature of the world - values are directly involved in it, because we live in a world where we have to decide what values to hold, as individuals, and in a democracy, collectively - essentially through reflexive discourse. In more traditional cultures those values are more given (Giddens & Pierson 219). Are the values we hold really the result of nothing more than rational "decisions"? Most people, if asked, would probably have only a vague idea about the origins of their values. One would be mistaken in attempting to trace them back to a purely rational decision making process. It is certainly hard to conceive of values, and maintain a meaningful sense of the word, if they are reduced to the result of "reflexive discourse" alone. This picture of the world is again far too tidy. People do not go through life choosing from and storing a range of values which they then apply methodically to their understanding of the world. What we value is bound up with all the factors I have just mentioned - culture, emotion and so on. In the same way, self-identity can no more easily be reduced to a number of options from which we choose objectively and transparently. This is apparent in a number of interrelated factors which impinge upon self-identity, largely overlooked in the championing of choice, self-disclosure and reflexivity. How we experience ourselves, how we want to see ourselves and others to see us - all the things that constitute self-identity - is open to contradiction. Giddens too easily constructs the reflexive self as a functional whole, all units - reflexivity, practical consciousness and the unconscious - working for the overall benefit of the self. Such a view of selfhood is easily complicated. I want to argue that most individuals are defined as much by the conflict of intentions, or by their actions contradicting their intentions. People are often unsure of what they want to happen - of their 'trajectory' - except when they indulge in fantasy. How one experiences one's self changes from day to day, moment to moment. A clear understanding of the self as a "reflexive narrative" is, in this context, a rare event. Individuals may be capable of reflexivity, but it is against a wider backdrop of ambiguity. In a recent analysis Giddens draws from a contemporary work of fiction to illustrate the exhaustive application of reflexivity in everyday life. The novel, Nicholas Baker's The Mezzanine, "deals with no more than a few moments in the day of a person who actively reflects, in detail, upon the minutiae of his life's surroundings and his reactions to them" (Giddens 1994a 60). Giddens goes on to quote a lengthy description, in which Baker's character reflects on an ice-cube tray he has just picked up. The extensive consideration of the changes in ice-cube trays and a detailed understanding of them represents, for Giddens, "profound processes of the reformation of daily life" (1994a 60). Everything is opened up to inspection, from a post-traditional vantage point. Even the more mundane elements of life are part of a series of "everyday experiments", in which the outcomes are no longer certain. In Giddens's analysis, "we are all in a sense, self-pioneers" (Tucker 206). Alternative Fictions Fictional accounts of selfhood, and the self's relation to others and the outside world, are likely to be pretty reflexive affairs. "Narratives of the self" are in fictional accounts, a prime concern. It may not always be helpful to draw upon fictional accounts to suggest the reflexivity of the modern world. This problem aside, fictional accounts can also be used to problematise the notion of reflexivity, and suggest a more ambiguous selfhood. In Tim Lott's recent novel, White City Blue he documents such an understanding throughout. Take this description of the development of the main character's relationship with his future wife: Not so long ago, me and Veronica would only see each other at weekends - that's Friday, Saturday and Sunday night - and on other night in the week; a ratio of freedom to commitment of 3:4. That's reasonable I think.... But as the marriage approaches, the F:C ratio is slipping badly. She's round here most nights now, and the ratio is moving towards more like 2:5 or even 1:6. I don't mind, I suppose. Processes like these aren't really stoppable anyway. It's organic, inevitable. Nobody decides, nobody really wants it to happen. But it happens anyway. I go out with my mates a few nights a week, she goes out with hers, but somehow or other, without any particular arrangement having been made, we both usually end up here (34-35; my emphasis). In this example, albeit fictional, the protagonist, far from reflexively understanding the passage of his life, only has a vague grasp of the cause of events. Reflexivity is only apparent in the retrospective illustration of those events for the reader. The fictional account of modern selfhood documented above is mirrored in a recent critique of Giddens's definition of reflexivity by Nicos Mouzelis, summarised in the following extract: the reflexive individuals' relation to their inner and outer worlds is conceptualised in ultra-activistic, instrumental terms: subjects are portrayed as constantly involved in means-ends situations, constantly trying reflexively and rationally to choose their broad goals as well as the means of their realisation; they are also constantly monitoring or revising their projects in the light of new information and of the already achieved results (85). Mouzelis does not suggest that the concept of reflexivity itself be abandoned. Instead he argues that Giddens's version of reflexive awareness is "culture-specific, or more precisely, western-specific". He argues that reflexivity needs to be re-conceptualised, to overcome Giddens's "over-activistic" tendencies, and accommodate other ways of being reflexive. Mouzelis signifies what alternative reflexivities might look like when he suggests what is missing from Giddens's concept. Giddens's understanding, he argues, "entails a type of reflexivity that excludes more contemplative, more 'easy-going', less cognitive ways of navigating reflexively in a world full of choices and individual challenges" (85). Mouzelis seeks an alternative formulation of reflexivity, which challenges Giddens's activistic version: Is it perhaps possible to resort to [a] reflexive attitude that does not seek (via rational choices) actively to construct life orientations, but rather allows in indirect, passive manner life orientations and other broad goals to emerge .... a kind of existence where instead of actively and instrumentally trying to master the complexity of growing choices, one chooses (to use Pierre-August Renoir's expression) to float as a cork in the ocean of post-traditional reality? (85-86). The main character in White City Blue would probably agree. An 'easy-going' attitude towards one's beliefs is displayed in this dialogue from the same novel: You were going to say that friends are the most important thing in life. I suppose so. I'm not sure. I suppose so. I don't know that I believe it though. Why would you say it if you didn't believe it? A good question. But isn't it what everyone does? You don't have to believe what you say. How are you meant to know what you believe? Sometimes - most of the time you just have to guess. You have to say something, after all. I don't know. Sometimes you just pick up opinions. Like fluff on your jacket. Uh-huh. And you don't always know where you picked up the fluff. But there it is all the same. In this extract the main character is disclaiming reflexive capabilities. The comparison between the fictional world evoked here and that in Giddens' example suggest two different views of modern self-identity. Reflexivity, as commonly understood in contemporary accounts, does not and cannot embrace the whole range of experiences which make up self-identity in each concrete moment, particularly the rationally ambiguous nature of everyday life, indicated here. There is more to self-experience than rational understanding – "no matter how skilled and knowledgeable the agent, miscommunication can arise because of emotional, cultural and other non-cognitive factors that are part of the process of communicating through language" (Mestrovic 46). As with communication with others, so with self-consciousness - communication with the self, and, as Halton suggests: "being human involves feeling, dreaming, experiencing, remembering and forgetting, and not simply knowing" (Halton 273). These other elements of experience contextualise reflexive awareness, and ground its transformative capabilities in the need to acknowledge the complexities of self-identity. Contemporary self-identity is characterised as much by a lack of definition and precision as it is by a calculable boundary and trajectory. It may, then, be possible to think of alternative ways of constructing identity which rely less upon rational-cognitive models of self-awareness. Alternative Selves The anti-religious philosophy of Krishnamurti is one example of an alternative formulation of self-identity incorporating a form of reflexivity (Mouzelis, Krishnamurti 1970). Krishnamurti"s texts demand that individuals give up on almost all forms of rational thinking in ordering their existence meaningfully. Furthermore: "Beliefs, divine revelations, sacred texts, as well as rationalistically derived moral codes, are not only quite irrelevant in the search for a spiritual, meaningful existence today, but they actually constitute serious obstacles to such a search" (Mouzelis 88). Krishnamurti"s belief is that genuine self-awareness comes about only when rationalised schemes and projects for the self are abandoned; "when ratiocination, planning and cognitively constructed means-end schemata are peripheralised" (Mouzelis 88). He argues "the fundamental understanding of oneself does not come through knowledge or through the cultivation of experiences" (Krishnamurti, 1970 25). To exist authentically, one has to explore one"s own self through "silent and continuous gazing inwards" (Mouzelis 89). From this state, "a tranquility that is not a product of the mind, a tranquility that is neither imagined nor cultivated" is possible (Krishnamurti 1970 28). Adorno is similarly critical of dominant formulations of emancipation, which, he argues, focus upon "the conception of unfettered activity, of uninterrupted procreation, chubby insatiability, of freedom as frantic bustle". (156). He imagines a world where "lying on water and looking peacefully at the sky, being, nothing else, without any further definition and fulfilment, might take the place of process, act, satisfaction" (157). I have not sought to explore Krishnamurti"s perspective in any detail here, nor indeed Adorno"s, Halton"s Mouzelis"s, or many other peripheral accounts of self, only indicates that alternative formulations of reflexivity are possible, where goal-oriented thought processes take a back seat to a more contemplative and tranquil awareness of self. In pursuing these alternatives, a more complex and representative understanding of reflexivity and self-identity may be generated. At the same time, alternative discourses may further illustrate and problematise the one-sidedness of neo-liberal accounts of the reflexive self. References Adorno, T. Minima Moralia. London: Verso, 1974. Baker, N. The Mezzanine. London: Harper Collins, 1990. Giddens, A. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. ---. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991. ---. The Transformation of Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. ---. "Living in a Post-Traditional Society". U. Beck, A. Giddens and S. Lash, Reflexive Modernization 1994. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Giddens, A & C. Pierson. Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making Sense of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998. Halton, E "The Modern Error: Or, the Unbearable Enlightenment of Being". Featherstone, Lash & Robertson (eds.) Global Modernities. Sage: London, 1995. Krishnamurti. The Krishnamurti Reader. London: Arkana, 1970. ---. The Impossible Question. London: Penguin, 1978. Lott, T. White City Blue. London: Penguin, 1999. Mestrovic, S.G. Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist. London: Routledge, 1998. Mouzelis, N. "Exploring post-traditional orders: Individual Reflexivity, 'pure relations' and duality of structure". O'Brien, Penna & Hay (eds.) (1999) Theorising Modernity. London: Longman. Tucker, K.H. Anthony Giddens and Modern Social Theory. London: Sage, 1998. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Adams, Matthew. "Ambiguity" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Adams.html &gt. Chicago Style Adams, Matthew, "Ambiguity" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Adams.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Adams, Matthew. (2002) Ambiguity. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Adams.php> ([your date of access]).

IntroductionFor many, north is an abstract point on a compass, an arrow that tells you which way to hold up a map. Though scientifically defined according to the magnetic north pole, and/or the earth’s axis of rotation, these facts are not necessarily discernible to the average person. Perhaps for this reason, the Oxford English Dictionary begins with reference to the far more mundane and accessible sun and features of the human body, in defining north as; “in the direction of the part of the horizon on the left-hand side of a person facing the rising sun” (OED Online). Indeed, many of the words for ‘north’ around the world are etymologically linked to the left hand side (for example Cornish clēth ‘north, left’). We shall see later that even in English, many speakers conceptualise ‘north’ in an egocentric way. Other languages define ‘north’ in opposition to an orthogonal east-west axis defined by the sun’s rising and setting points (see, e.g., the extensive survey of Brown).Etymology aside, however, studies such as Brown’s presume a set of four cardinal directions which are available as primordial ontological categories which may (or may not) be labelled by the languages of the world. If we accept this premise, the fact that a word is translated as ‘north’ is sufficient to understand the direction it describes. There is good reason to reject this premise, however. We present data from three languages among which there is considerable variance in how the words translated as ‘north’ are typically used and understood. These languages are Kuuk Thaayorre (an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Cape York Peninsula), Marshallese (an Oceanic language spoken in the Republic of the Marshall Islands), and Dhivehi (an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Maldives). Lastly, we consider the results of an experiment that show Australian English speakers tend to interpret the word north according to the orientation of their own bodies and the objects they manipulate, rather than as a cardinal direction as such.‘North’ in Kuuk ThaayorreKuuk Thaayorre is a Pama-Nyungan language spoken on the west coast of Australia’s Cape York Peninsula in the community of Pormpuraaw. The Kuuk Thaayorre words equivalent to north, south, east and west (hereafter, ‘directionals’) are both complex and frequently used. They are complex in the sense that they combine with prefixes and suffixes to form dozens of words which indicate not only the direction involved, but also the degree of distance, whether there is motion from, towards, to a fixed point, or within a bounded area in that location, proximity to the local river, and more. The ubiquity of these words is illustrated by the fact that the most common greeting formula involves one person asking nhunt wanthan pal yan? ‘where are you going’ and the other responding, for example, ngay yuurriparrop yan ‘I’m going a long way southwards towards the river’, or ngay iilungkarruw yan ‘I’m coming from the northwest’. Directional terms are strewn liberally throughout Kuuk Thaayorre speech. They are employed in the description of both large-scale and small-scale spaces, whether giving directions to a far-off town, asking another person to ‘move a little to the north’, or identifying the person ‘to the east’ of another in a photograph. Likewise, directional gestures are highly frequent, sometimes augmenting the information given in the speech stream, sometimes used in the absence of spoken directions, and other times redundantly duplicating the information given by a directional word.The forms and meanings of directional words are described in detail in Gaby (Gaby 344–52). At the core of this system are six directional roots referring to the north and south banks of the nearby Edward River as well as two intersecting axes. One of these axes is equivalent to the east—west axis familiar to English speakers, and is defined by the apparent diurnal trajectory of the sun. (At a latitude of 14 degrees 54 minutes south, the Kuuk Thaayorre homeland sees little variation in the location of sunrise and sunset through the year.) While the poles of the second axis are translated by the English terms north and south, from a Western perspective this axis is skewed such that Kuuk Thaayorre -ungkarr ‘~north’ lies approximately 35 degrees west of magnetic north. Rather than being defined by magnetic or polar north, this axis aligns with the local coastline. This is true even when the terms are used at inland locations where there is no visual access to the water or parallel sand ridges. How Kuuk Thaayorre speakers apply this system to environments further removed from this particular stretch of coast—especially in the presence of a differently-oriented coast—remains a topic for future research.‘North’ in MarshalleseMarshallese is the language of the people of the Marshall Islands, an expansive archipelago consisting of 22 inhabited atolls and three inhabited non-atoll islands located in the Northern Pacific. The Marshallese have a long history as master navigators, a skill necessary to keep strong links between far-flung and disparate islands (Lewis; Genz).Figure 1: The location of the Marshall IslandsAs with other Pacific languages (e.g. Palmer; Ross; François), Marshallese deploys a complex system of geocentric references. Cardinal directions are historically derived from the Pacific trade winds, reflecting the importance of these winds for navigation and wayfinding. The etymologies of the Marshallese directions are shown in Table 1 below. The terms given in this table are in the Ralik dialect, spoken in the western Marshall Islands. The terms used in the Ratak (eastern) dialect are related, but slightly different in form. See Schlossberg for more detailed discussion. Etymologies originally sourced from Bender et al. and Ross.Table 1: Marshallese cardinal direction words with etymological source semantics EastWestNorthSouthNoun formrearrilik iōn̄ rōkEtymology‘calm shore (of islet)’‘rough shore (of islet)’‘windy season’; ‘season of northerly winds’‘dry season’; ‘season of southerly winds’Verb modifier formtatonin̄a rōn̄aEtymology‘up(wind)’‘down(wind)’‘windy season’; ‘season of northerly winds’‘dry season’; ‘season of southerly winds’As with many other Oceanic languages, Marshallese has three domains of spatial language use: the local domain, the inshore-maritime domain and the navigational domain. Cardinal directions are the sole strategy employed in the navigational domain, which occurs when sailing on the open ocean. In the inshore-maritime domain, which applies when sailing on the ocean or lagoon in sight of land, a land-sea axis is used (The question of whether, in fact, these directions form axes as such is considered further below). Similarly, when walking around an island, a calm side-rough side (of island) axis is employed. In both situations, either the cardinal north-south axis or east-west axis is used to form a secondary cross-axis to the topography-based axis. The cardinal axis parallel to the calm-rough or land-sea axis is rarely used. When the island is not oriented perfectly perpendicular to one of the cardinal axes, the cardinal axes rotate such that they are perpendicular to the primary axis. This can result in the orientation of iōn̄ ‘north’ being quite skewed away from ‘true’ north. An example of how the cardinal and topographic axes prototypically work is exemplified in Figure 2, which shows Jabor, an islet in Jaluit Atoll in the south-west Marshalls.Figure 2: The geocentric directional system of Jabor, Jaluit AtollWhile cartographic cardinal directions comprise two perpendicular axes, this is not the case for many Marshallese. The clearest evidence for this is the directional system of Kili Island, a small non-atoll island approximately 50km west of Jaluit Atoll. The directional system of Kili is similar to that of Jabor, with one notable exception; the iōn̄-rōk ‘north-south’ and rear-rilik ‘east-west’ axes are not perpendicular but rather parallel (Figure 3) The rear-rilik axis takes precedence and the iōn̄-rōk axis is rarely used, showing the primacy of the east-west axis on Kili. This is a clear indication that the Western abstraction of crossed cardinal axes is not in play in the Marshall Islands; the iōn̄-rōk and rear-rilik axes can function completely independently of one another.Figure 3: Geocentric system of spatial reference on KiliSpringdale is a small city in north-west of the landlocked state of Arkansas. It hosts the largest number of expatriate Marshallese in the United States. Of 26 participants in an object placement task, four respondents were able to correctly identify the four cardinal points (Schlossberg). Aside from some who said they simply did not know others gave a variety of answers, including that iōn̄, rōk, rilik and rear only exist in the Marshall Islands. Others imagined a canonical orientation derived from their home atoll and transposed this onto their current environment; one person who was facing the front door in their house in Springdale reported that they imagined they were in their house in the Marshall Islands, where when oriented towards the door, they were facing iōn̄ ‘north’, thus deriving an orientation with respect to a Marshallese cardinal direction. Aside from the four participants who identified the directions correctly, a further six participants responded in a consistent—if incorrect—way, i.e. although the directions were not correctly identified, the responses were consistent with the conceptualisation of crossed cardinal axes, merely that the locations identified were rotated from their true referents. This leaves 16 of the 26 participants (62%) who did not display evidence of having a conceptual system of two crossed cardinal axes.If one were to point in a direction and say ‘this is north’, most Westerners would easily be able to identify ‘south’ by pointing in the opposite direction. This is not the case with Marshallese speakers, many of whom are unable to do the same if given a Marshallese cardinal direction and asked to name its opposite (cf. Schlossberg). This demonstrates that for many Marshallese, each of these cardinal terms do not form axes at all, but rather are four unique locally-anchored points.‘North’ in DhivehiDhivehi is spoken in the Maldives, an archipelago to the southwest of India and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean (see Figure 4). Maldivians have a long history of sailing on the open waters, in order to fish and to trade. Traditionally, much of the adult male population would spend long periods of time on such voyages, riding the trade winds and navigating by the stars. For Maldivians, uturu ‘north’ is a direction of safety—the long axis of the Maldivian archipelago runs north to south, and so by sailing north, one has the best possible chance of reaching another island or (eventually) the mainlands of India or Sri Lanka.Figure 4: Location of the MaldivesIt is perhaps unsurprising, then, that many Maldivians are well attuned to the direction denoted by uturu ‘north’, as well as to the other cardinal directions. In an object placement task performed by 41 participants in Laamu Atoll, 32 participants (78%) correctly placed a plastic block ‘to the north’ (uturaṣ̊) of another block when instructed to do so (Lum). The prompts dekonaṣ̊ ‘to the south’ and huḷangaṣ̊ ‘to the west’ yielded similarly high rates of correct responses, though as many as 37 participants (90%) responded correctly to the prompt iraṣ̊ ‘to the east’—this is perhaps because the term for ‘east’ also means ‘sun’ and is strongly associated with the sunrise, whereas the terms for the other cardinal directions are comparatively opaque. However, the path of the sun is not the only environmental cue that shapes the use of Dhivehi cardinal directions. As in Kuuk Thaayorre and Marshallese, cardinal directions in Dhivehi are often ‘calibrated’ according to the orientation of local coastlines. In Fonadhoo, for example, which is oriented northeast to southwest, the system of cardinal directions is rotated about 45 degrees clockwise: uturu ‘north’ points to what is actually northeast and dekona/dekunu ‘south’ to what is actually southwest (i.e., along the length of the island), while iru/iramati ‘east’ and huḷangu ‘west’ are perpendicular to shore (see Figure 5). However, despite this rotated system being in use, residents of Fonadhoo often comment that these are not the ‘real’ cardinal directions, which are determined by the path of the sun.Figure 5: Directions in Fonadhoo, Laamu Atoll, MaldivesIn addition to the four cardinal directions, Dhivehi possesses four intercardinal directions, which are compound terms: iru-uturu ‘northeast’, iru-dekunu ‘southeast’, huḷangu-uturu ‘northwest’, and huḷangu-dekunu ‘southwest’. Yet even a system of eight compass points is not sufficient for describing directions over long distances, especially on the open sea where there are no landmarks to refer to. A system of 32 ‘sidereal’ compass directions (see Figure 6), based on the rising and setting points of stars in the night sky, is available for such purposes—for example, simāgu īran̊ ‘Arcturus rising’ points ENE or 67.5°, while simāgu astamān̊ ‘Arcturus setting’ points WNW or 292.5°. (These Dhivehi names for the sidereal directions are borrowings from Arabic, and were probably introduced by Arab seafarers in the medieval period, see Lum 174-79). Eight sidereal directions coincide with the basic (inter)cardinal directions of the solar compass described earlier. For example, gahā ‘Polaris’ in the sidereal compass corresponds exactly with uturu ‘north’ in the solar compass. Thus Dhivehi has both a sidereal ‘north’ and a solar ‘north’, though the latter is sometimes rotated according to local topography. However, the system of sidereal compass directions has largely fallen out of use, and is known only to older and some middle-aged men. This appears to be due to the diversification of the Maldivian economy in recent decades along with the modernisation of Maldivian fishing vessels, including the introduction of GPS technology. Nonetheless, fishermen and fishing communities use solar compass directions much more frequently than other groups in the Maldives (Lum; Palmer et al.), and some of the oldest men still use sidereal compass directions occasionally.Figure 6: Dhivehi sidereal compass with directions in Thaana script (used with kind permission of Abdulla Rasheed and Abdulla Zuhury)‘North’ in EnglishThe traditional definition of north in terms of Magnetic North or Geographic North is well known to native English speakers and may appear relatively straightforward. In practice, however, the use and interpretation of north is more variable. English speakers generally draw on cardinal directions only in restricted circumstances, i.e. in large-scale geographical or navigational contexts rather than, for example, small-scale configurations of manipulable objects (Majid et al. 108). Consequently, most English speakers do not need to maintain a mental compass to keep track of North at all times. So, if English speakers are generally unaware of where North is, how do they perform when required to use it?A group of 36 Australian English speakers participated in an experimental task where they were presented with a stimulus object (in this case, a 10cm wide cube) while facing S72ºE (Poulton). They were then handed another cube and asked to place it next to the stimulus cube in a particular direction (e.g. ‘put this cube to the north of that cube’). Participants completed a total of 48 trials, including each of the four cardinal directions as target, as well as expressions such as behind, in front of and to the left of. As shown in Figure 7, participants’ responses were categorised in one of three ways: correct, near-correct, or incorrect.Figure 7: Possible responses to prompt of north: A = correct, B = near-correct (aligned with the side of stimulus object closest to north), C = incorrect.Every participant placed their cube in alignment with the axes of the stimulus object (i.e. responses B and C in Figure 7). Orientation to Magnetic/Geographic North was thus insufficient to override the local cues of the task at hand. The 9% of participants showed some awareness of the location of Magnetic/Geographic North, however, by making the near-correct response type B. No participants who behaved in such a way expressed certainty in their responses, however. Most commonly, they calculated the rough direction concerned by triangulating with local landmarks such as nearby roads, or the location of Melbourne’s CBD (as verbally expressed both during the task and during an informal interview afterwards).The remaining 91% of participants’ responses were entirely incorrect. Of these, 13.2% involved similar thought processes as the near-correct responses, but did not result in the identification of the closest side of the stimulus to the instructed direction. However, 77.8% of the total participants interpreted north as the far side of the stimulus. While such responses were classified incorrect on the basis of Magnetic or Geographic North, they were consistent with one another and correct with respect to an alternative definition of English north in terms of the participant’s own body. One of the participants alludes to this alternative definition, asking “Do you mean my North or physical North?”. We refer to this alternative definition as Relative North. Relative North is not bound to any given point on the Earth or a derivation of the sun’s position; instead, it is entirely bound to the perceiver’s own orientation. This equates the north direction with forward and the other cardinals’ points are derived from this reference point (see Figure 8). Map-reading practices likely support the development of the secondary, Relative sense of North.Figure 8: Relative North and the Relative directions derived from itConclusionWe have compared the words closest in meaning to the English word north in four entirely unrelated languages. In the Australian Aboriginal language Kuuk Thaayorre, the ‘north’ direction aligns with the local coast, pointing in a direction 35 degrees west of Magnetic North. In Marshallese, the compass direction corresponding to ‘north’ is different for each island, being defined in opposition to an axis running between the ocean and lagoon sides of that island. The Dhivehi ‘north’ direction may be defined either in opposition to the (sun-based) east-west axis, calibrated to the configuration of the local island, as in Marshallese, or defined in terms of Polaris, the Pole star. In all these cases, though, the system of directions is anchored by properties of the external environment. English speakers, by contrast, are shown to—at least some of the time—define north with reference to their own embodied perspective, as the direction extending outwards from the front of their bodies. These findings demonstrate that, far from being universal, ‘north’ is a culture-specific category. As such, great care must be taken when translating or drawing equivalencies between these concepts across languages.ReferencesBender, Byron W., et al. “Proto-Micronesian Reconstructions: I.” Oceanic Linguistics 42.1 (2003): 1–110.Brown, Cecil H. “Where Do Cardinal Direction Terms Come From?” Anthropological Linguistics 25.2 (1983): 121–161. 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