Cultural Differences and Semantic FuzzinessIn English and Chinese Numeral Idioms中西数字习语的文化差异和语义模糊性.pdfVIP

中西数字习语的文化差异和语义模糊性 Cultural Differences and Semantic Fuzziness In English and Chinese Numeral Idioms 1. Comparison and contrast of numeral idioms in English and Chinese Culture In different cultural and historical countries, the numerals have different symbolic meanings, and so do the numeral idioms. The using of numerals present the different human thoughts, due to the traditional culture in these two countries, the distinct disparity present the admiration, prejudice, taboo, and rejection of numbers. 1.1 The Chinese numeral idioms and their culture Chinese culture traces its history back to ancient times, and the concept of numeral is from nature, but these simple figures become the symbol of good or bad luck or something else, even controls people’s daily life. Some special numerals have special meanings; let’s take several examples to analyze them. Example1. The basic numeral in Chinese is “yi”, as it means the beginning of everything, the resource of everything, thus more than 200 idioms within it appear in China. As follows: Yixinyiyiheart and soul (somebody doing something with undivided attention) Yifanfengshunplain or smooth sailing (the wish of victory in one’s life) Example2. From what yi is saying, 《易﹒系辞上》云：“易有太极，是生两仪，两仪生 四像， 四像生八卦。”We know that the explanation of the world by yi is more or less representing the Chinese people’s bias of even numbers.(Qi Jiantao,2006:25~27) Hence in daily life, the antithesis (对偶) and the symmetry (对称) are favors of people’s using. The common saying: “haoshiuchengshuang” can be translated “Good things go by twos.” The even numeral two is one of the perfect numbers in Chinese culture, symbolic meaning of connubial happiness. Another even number “ba” is the homophone of “发” in Cantonese, which means making a fortune. Because of the rapid development of economy in Guangdong, people prefer to use this figure to be car number, phone number,