English Naming Policy for Arabic Rhetorical Devices

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🔗 Live DOI	10.64393/balagha.naming.policy
Date	23 September 2026
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Introduction

The English Naming Policy for Arabic Rhetorical Devices establishes how the Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric names Arabic rhetorical devices in English. It distinguishes between the authoritative Arabic terminology of the classical tradition and the English labels through which the Encyclopedia makes that tradition accessible to English-speaking users. The Policy first explains why Arabic rhetorical devices require carefully controlled English labels, and then sets out the Encyclopedia's rules for creating them.

The Naming Problem

Arabic terminology is authoritative

The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric is grounded in the classical Arabic rhetorical tradition. Where available, the Arabic name and classical definition of a rhetorical device establish that device's identity, boundaries, internal distinctions, and relation to other categories.

The Encyclopedia enables English access to Arabic rhetoric

The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric is an English-language resource. It is intended to make Arabic rhetoric accessible for scholarship and applications in Digital Humanities and Quantitative Linguistics, fields in which much research communication, corpus annotation, computational infrastructure, structured-data practice, and software development are conducted in English.

Arabic terminology therefore cannot normally appear as the Encyclopedia's only public label. A bare term such as al-majāz is authoritative within the Arabic rhetorical tradition, but it does not, by itself, enable an English-speaking user, annotator, corpus researcher, or computational system to identify the relevant linguistic mechanism, navigate the taxonomy, or apply the category consistently.

The Encyclopedia consequently uses English as its primary access layer into Arabic rhetoric. English labels support discovery, navigation, documentation, annotation, data exchange, and computational use. Their role is to make Arabic rhetorical categories intelligible and usable for English-speaking audiences, not to replace Arabic terminology or assimilate Arabic rhetoric to an English-language taxonomy. The English name is not intended as a replacement for the Arabic term. It is not an independent definition of the device, and it must not delimit the Arabic category. Arabic terminology and the classical Arabic definition remain authoritative.

Existing English terminology is not a reliable default

The obvious English labels available to the Encyclopedia often derive from Western rhetorical or modern linguistic traditions. These labels may overlap with Arabic rhetorical categories, but overlap does not establish equivalence.

Using an established English rhetorical label for an Arabic device may produce three forms of error:

Analytic drift. Annotators may apply the inclusion and exclusion criteria of a familiar English term rather than the Encyclopedia's classical Arabic definition.
Taxonomic drift. An Arabic category may be silently narrowed, broadened, merged with, or otherwise reshaped by a non-equivalent English category.
Model-mediated drift. AI systems, search tools, and downstream users of the Encyclopedia's data may prioritise a high-frequency English term and infer its usual English-language rhetorical properties rather than the intended Arabic definition.

For example, if an Arabic device were labelled metonymy, a user or AI system might apply the usual English-language understanding of metonymy, even if that understanding did not match the relevant classical Arabic definition of al-kināya. The same concern applies to terms such as anaphora, cataphora, synecdoche, apostrophe, periphrasis, irony, litotes, chiasmus, hypallage, zeugma, and prolepsis.

The problem, then, is not whether to use Arabic or English. The Encyclopedia requires both: Arabic for scholarly authority and English for accessibility. The challenge is to provide English labels that facilitate access without importing non-equivalent external definitions.

The English Naming Policy

The English Naming Policy for Arabic Rhetorical Devices uses a sequential naming workflow governed by six principles to meet the requirements stated above.

Principle 1: Established English terms are used if appropriate

A familiar English rhetorical term may be used only when all of the following conditions apply:

Intelligibility: it is the ordinary English access term through which users would expect to find the broad phenomenon, and its conventional meaning is sufficiently aligned with the Arabic category to function as an access label without misrepresenting it.
Non-presumption: the ordinary English usage does not materially narrow, expand, or predetermine the Encyclopedia's Arabic definition.
Necessity: an alternative constructed English label would be less intelligible, less natural as an English label, less discoverable, or disproportionately cumbersome.

Current examples of permissible access terms include simile, metaphor, hyperbole, ellipsis, repetition, and euphemism. When the Encyclopedia uses such a term, the Arabic definition - not the English term's conventional usage - remains authoritative.

Principle 2: Non-equivalent Western labels are avoided

Terms from Western rhetoric or linguistic discourse analysis whose conventional meanings do not fully match the scope of an Arabic term are not used as:

English names for Arabic rhetorical devices
Category labels
Aliases
Equivalence mappings
Comparative correspondences

An established English rhetorical name may be used only where the correspondence with the Arabic device is sufficiently clear that the name does not import materially different recognition criteria or boundaries. Where correspondence requires qualification, a transparent operational English name should be used instead. An established English rhetorical term should not name an Arabic rhetorical device when it corresponds only to one of that device's Annotation Units.

The Encyclopedia adopts a policy of strict non-equivalence mapping. At present, it is not within the scope of the Encyclopedia to provide mappings, equivalents, or comparative correspondences between Arabic rhetorical terms and Western rhetorical terms. This reflects both methodological care and project scope. Reliable comparison would require extensive specialist research, citation, and review; an inaccurate or under-supported comparison could mislead users and compromise the self-contained Arabic taxonomy.

Principle 3: Natural translations of Arabic terminology are preferred where no suitable established English term exists

Where no suitable established English access term is available, the Encyclopedia begins with a direct or close translation of the source-attested Arabic terminology. Where a literal translation would be vague, opaque, unnatural, or insufficiently useful for analytical purposes, the translation may be minimally clarified in accordance with the Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric's principle of Controlled Abstraction. Such clarification should preserve the semantic identity and conceptual framing of the Arabic category and should not introduce distinctions unsupported by the Arabic rhetorical tradition.

Principle 4: Mechanism-based descriptive English terms are constructed where translation is inadequate

Where neither a suitable established English access term nor a satisfactory translation provides an appropriate label, the Encyclopedia constructs a descriptive English name that identifies the Arabic linguistic operation. A descriptive label should state, where relevant:

What is present or omitted
What is advanced, delayed, repeated, transferred, or otherwise changed
What is referred to
Which elements are related
The direction of a relationship
The grammatical or lexical target of the operation
Any condition necessary to distinguish the operation from neighbouring devices

In accordance with the Encyclopedia's Model for Rhetorical Action (MRA), descriptive labels for rhetorical devices should identify the linguistic operation because the MRA considers the linguistic operation as being the defining and distinguishing feature of a rhetorical device. Communicator intent may be uncertain or inferred, while communicative enhancement describes what the operation contributes to the expression rather than what the device is. The English label should therefore reflect the linguistic operation itself rather than the presumed intention behind it or the enhancement it produces. Labels should be specific enough to distinguish neighbouring categories, while remaining as concise and natural in English as accuracy permits. Additional information should be incorporated into the label only where it is necessary to preserve a distinction made by the Arabic category. English names should be selected to avoid a clash with the name of an ordinary grammatical, linguistic, communicative, or discourse phenomenon.

The naming for subtypes of rhetorical devices, however, should track the source-grounded criterion by which instances of that device are subdivided. That criterion may concern structural configuration, grammatical or lexical target, semantic or cognitive relationship, contextual function, Communicative Enhancement, or another analytically relevant distinction recognised in the Arabic rhetorical sources.

In both cases, greater descriptive explicitness does not by itself justify replacing a familiar English access term. An English label is an access label, not a compressed definition of the device.

Principle 5: Arabic names are preserved alongside English names

Where available, the Arabic name of a device is retained as authoritative scholarly terminology. Its transliteration, following the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) transliteration system, must be stored as a searchable, machine-readable alternate label.

The transliteration should normally be displayed alongside the English label on individual device pages and detailed taxonomy views. In compact interfaces, it may be available through expansion, hover text, or click-through presentation.

Principle 6: English labels must be intelligible outside their immediate hierarchy

The proposed English name of a rhetorical device, subtype, sub-subtype, or other Annotation Unit should be sufficiently intelligible when encountered independently of its immediate hierarchical context. This requirement applies regardless of whether the label derives from an established English term, a translation of source-attested Arabic terminology, or a constructed descriptive name.

A label should therefore not depend entirely on a parent heading to indicate what is being named. In particular, a relational, scalar, or otherwise context-dependent expression such as Close, Distant, Complete, Partial, Explicit, or Implicit should be clarified where, on its own, it does not identify the phenomenon or distinction being classified. Where clarification is required, the shortest natural semantic head or other contextual element necessary for intelligibility should be retained or supplied.

Such clarification must not introduce a new distinction, redefine the source-attested category, or convert the English label into a compressed definition. Its purpose is solely to ensure that the label remains interpretable when encountered in annotation software, structured datasets, JSON output, corpus exports, search results, tables, and other contexts in which the parent hierarchy may not be visible.

The Six-Step Naming Procedure

English names for Arabic rhetorical devices and their subtypes are assigned through the following sequence:

Establish the Arabic category. Begin with the source-attested Arabic terminology and definition. These determine the identity, boundaries, and internal distinctions of the rhetorical device or subtype to be named.
Consider an established English access term. Determine whether an obvious or established English rhetorical term is available for the broad phenomenon. In accordance with Principles 1 and 2, such a term is used only where appropriate research shows that it can function safely as an English access label, including where its scope substantially corresponds with the Arabic category or where, despite differences in scope, it satisfies the conditions of intelligibility, non-presumption, and necessity stated in Principle 1. Its use does not make the English category authoritative over the Arabic definition.
Translate the Arabic terminology where no suitable established English term is available. In accordance with Principle 3, the Encyclopedia prefers a natural English rendering of the source-attested Arabic name. Where a literal translation would be vague, opaque, unnatural, or insufficiently useful for analytical purposes, limited clarification may be introduced through Controlled Abstraction.
Construct a descriptive English label where translation is inadequate. In accordance with Principle 4, where neither an established English access term nor a satisfactory translation provides a usable label, the Encyclopedia constructs the shortest natural English expression that adequately identifies the defining Linguistic Operation or, for a subtype, the source-grounded classificatory distinction. For rhetorical devices, a constructed descriptive label normally reflects the defining Linguistic Operation. Where the resulting English name could plausibly be mistaken for an ordinary grammatical, linguistic, communicative, or discourse phenomenon, a minimal qualifier such as Rhetorical may be added. For subtypes, the label instead reflects the source-grounded criterion by which instances of the parent device are subdivided, which may occur at another analytical level of the Model for Rhetorical Action.
Construct a descriptive English label where translation is inadequate. In accordance with Principle 4, where neither an established English access term nor a satisfactory translation provides a usable label, the Encyclopedia constructs the shortest natural English expression that adequately identifies the defining Linguistic Operation or, for a subtype, the source-grounded classificatory distinction. For rhetorical devices, a constructed descriptive label normally reflects the defining Linguistic Operation. Such qualification should be added only where it materially improves recognition and should not imply a higher degree of rhetorical salience than the device requires. For subtypes, the label instead reflects the source-grounded criterion by which instances of the parent device are subdivided, which may occur at another analytical level of the Model for Rhetorical Action.
Preserve the Arabic terminology. In accordance with Principle 5, the authoritative Arabic name and its transliteration are retained alongside the English label.
Test the English label for independent intelligibility. In accordance with Principle 6, consider the proposed English name outside its immediate taxonomic hierarchy. Where the label would be vague or uninterpretable without its parent heading, add only the minimum contextual information necessary to make the category intelligible without altering the source-grounded distinction.

Page History

2026-09-23 - Page created: English Naming Policy for Arabic Rhetorical Devices.