Social Psychology of Auspicious and Ominous Cardinal Numbers in Oriental and Occidental Cultures and Their Translations

Ethnic culture, religious belief, legends and tales have made a great impact on numbers and they are endowed with cultural connotation. People from different cultures look numbers as auspicious or ominous ones which are favourite in a race or taboo in the other. Connotation and associative meaning of the numbers have gestated peculiar digital cultures in different countries. By comparison between Chinese and English numbers in connotation and denotation we may understand the English and Chinese social cultures better and avoid the conflicts and misunderstanding in cross-cultural communications, which can be of help in translating numerical idioms. Translation criteria of numbers are discussed