The nomenclature of storms in Arabic from Arabicisation to adaptation

This article deals with the naming of ecology-related objects in Arabic, as illustrated in the naming of the snowstorms “Storm Huda”, “Storm Jana” and “Storm Zina” which whipped through the Middle East countries on January 6 and February 19, 2015 respectively. The article analyses a corpus of headlines taken from four online newspapers and one news agency, examines the strong connotative values of the snowstorm names, and discusses their relations to translation. The findings of the study show a consensus amongst journalists and meteorologists in Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia to avoid Arabicisation and opt instead for a full adaptation of foreign storm names in line with the poetics of the receiving culture, one seemingly infused with several echoes from Arab-Islamic culture and particularly the Qur’an. The meticulous care in their choice of words is fully compatible with the perceived target language (TL) audience belonging to Arab-Islamic culture, one with little affinity to English culture.