A Comparison Of English And Chinese Numerical Idioms

Numerical idioms are idioms formed with cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers and other words which have the meaning of number. This paper makes a comparison of the classification, the cultural connotations, and the forming structure of the numerical idioms between English and Chinese. There are set phrases, colloquialisms, proverbs and slang expressions in English numerical idioms, while there are four-character set phrases, colloquialisms, proverbs, slang expressions in Chinese numerical idioms. Due to the commonness of English and Chinese culture and the similar factors in their thinking modes, people may cause the same and similar association on the same number; but owing to the differences in the natural environment, social system, folklore, religion and thinking modes of English and Chinese nationalities, numbers have formed their own distinguishing, national feature. This paper analysis the sameness and difference of English and Chinese culture of number from three aspects: psychological aspect, mythological aspect and religionary aspect. When we analysis English and Chinese Numerical idioms, we found that Chinese is abundant in numerical idioms. take four-character idioms for example, Chinese numbers have strong ability to form words and numbers are most used symmetrically and coordinately. It's common to find the phenomena of successive application of two numbers, reduplicated application of two numbers and alternative use of the same number in Chinese numerical idioms. While English numbers is weak in forming words. The number of idioms combinated by numbers is limited and focuces on finited numbers. English numbers usually-link with prepositions to form idioms and thus have a loose structure. This paper makes a comparison on the same connotations of the English and Chinese numerical idioms. On the base of the same connotations, with the cultural background we classify the numerical idioms into four groups according to different corresponding relations of the forming structures and techniques of expression. Correspondent forming structure and techniques of expression (same numbers/different numbers) ; correspondent forming structure and non-correspondent technique of expression (same numbers/different numbers); non-correspondent forming structure and correspondent technique of expression (same numbers/different numbers) ; non-correspondent forming structure and non-correspondent technique of expression (same numbers/different numbers).The cross-cultural comparison on connotations of the numerical idioms shows that there are semantic overlap and cultural overlap though there are language difference and cultural difference. The Chinese lay particular stress on imaginal thinking, while Englishmen lay particular stress on logical thinking. On one hand, English and Chinese select the same words and numbers, the same forming structure, even the same rhetorical means in numerical idioms. First, people have the same cognition of themselves. second, people have the same cognition of the nature. Last people have the same rules of communication with other members in the community. On the other hand, through cognition reality can have some relation with language. The bigger the realistic gap, the bigger the cognitive difference, and the bigger differences in idiom expressions. So there are a lot of different numerical idiom expressions caused by different forming structure or different rhetorical means in English and Chinese numerical idioms. We can inquiry into features of national culture implicated in numerical idioms correctly through comparative study on the structure and connotations of numerical idioms.