Abstract: Number, which reflects the scales of the physical world, is a special kind of language system. In the early days, the meaning of number showed no difference in both English and Chinese. However, with the development of history, some numbers have different symbolic meanings influenced by different regions, religions, psychology, mythologies and social customs, thus a unique phenomenon appeared which we called number culture. This paper discusses the cultural differences in numerical worship and numerical taboo between Chinese and English and explores the causes of the distinctions in order to analyze the inspirations for cross-cultural communication. It is hoped that the present study will help people get a better understanding of number and use it properly in cross-cultural communication.
Key words: number; cultural differences; cross-culture
摘要：数字是反映客观物质世界的规模、大小的数和量，是一种特殊的语言符号，它的初始的数字意义在英汉两种语言中是一致的。但在历史发展过程中，由于使用数字的民族不同，以及受不同的地域、宗教、心理、神话、社会习俗等因素的影响，部分数字虚化，产生了不同的象征意义，形成了一种独特的“数字文化”现象。本文将通过揭示中西方吉祥数字文化和禁忌数字文化的差异，并分析造成中西方数字文化差异的原因，来探讨中西方数字文化的差异对跨文化交际的启示，从而加深对中西方数字的理解，在跨文化交流中能够恰当地使用数字。
关键词：数字；文化差异；跨文化
