The term 'reference' refers to the relation between a nominal expresson and an individual or an object from the outside world, either real or fiction. In this article the author defends his hypothesis that explicit-implicit reference is different in every single language. He compares equivalent texts in Arabic and English and analyses the choices made on the explicit level. The results indicate that Arabic and English texts differ in their use of various expressions of reference. While English texts tend to have a more explicit character in the domain of proper names, Arabic texts prefer to stress the explicit character by using nominal structures which comprise the definite article and possesive and demonstrative adjectives.