摘　要

数字反映了一个民族的生产、生活和思维，也是文化的一部分。本文在美国和中国文化的基础上研究了文化中的数字，更确切的说是文化禁忌和数字，希望通过研究，意在阐述清楚在不同文化中的数字禁忌。不同于其他同行的是，本文聚焦于在不同文化中的数字禁忌，而这前人很少做过。本文运用了文献资料法、归纳法和引用方法来阐述数字和文化禁忌。经过研究，在多文化和跨文化交际中，文化禁忌应当被高度重视。在实际操作中，希望文化禁忌能尽量帮助到更多人。后续的研究可能会重点关注数字的喜好和文化，作为与本文的对应方面。

关键词：数字；文化；禁忌
 
Abstract

Number word, generally reflects the production, life style and thoughts of any nation in the world, which is called culture. This thesis studied on number words in cultures on the basis of American and Chinese with the purpose of illustrating number taboos in different cultures. Different from others’ thesis, this one focuses on number taboos in different cultures, which is nearly done by others before. As for methodology, documental method, inductive method and citing method are adopted in this thesis. After research, attention for culture taboos is strengthened for the significant values. In practical, culture taboos will hopefully be avoided as possible. And the next research may mainly turn to preference of number words in culture. Numbers, as well as numeral words play an important role in conveying culture meanings and imageries all around the world. However, differentiations in sense and symbolism exist due to different culture backgrounds. Different culture environments create varies cultural taboos. Nowadays, people from Chinese pay much attention to American cultural taboos and in return, foreigners learn a lot about Chinese cultural taboos, such as taboos in communication and taboos about death. In everyday life, people should collect and learn more taboos for smooth intercultural communication with the growing of globalization. Number, in English and Chinese language, mostly presents cultural essential words, also called culturally-loaded. Number words are different in communication on some special definitions due to the different methods in expressing habit.

Key words: Number words; culture; taboos

1 Introduction
1.1 Research background
Nowadays, Christmas Day becomes a popular festival in China and numeral people, especially the young, enjoy this day very much. Along the history, most cultures and customs from other countries have been introduced and accepted in China. People’s life is to change when new customs are introduced.
Cross-cultural communication is such a large area in people’s life that study on this area becomes a heated topic. However, such a few studies have been reviewed, one may make a conclusion that only few scholars take a glance on study of numbers, nor does methods of researching about numbers.