On the Meaning of the Number SEVEN in the Eastern and Western Culture.doc

a thesis of linguistics on the meaning of the number seven in the eastern and western cultureabstractnumbers are invented to meet the needs of society by the help of symbols, signs and semiotics when human beings develop to a certain stage. owning to the influence of the eastern and western tradition, religious belief, language worship, there are different apotheoses of the numbers between the east and the west. besides, there are many things in common and similar laws, especially in the worship of number. in the past, scholars at home and abroad usually study the problem from a series of number perspective and few from the specific number perspective. this thesis first of all summarizes the origin and development stages of numerology study, followed by the interpretation of connotation, denotation and the symbolic meaning about seven from semiotics. later, the article gives the applications of seven in the eastern and western society, culture and daily life, attempting to further compare the connotation, denotation and the symbolic meaning of the number seven in the east and west. with abundant examples, the paper aims at proving that the connotation and the symbolic meaning of numbers can reflect culture as well as a mode of mind and deed.key words: semiotics; the number seven; culture; meaning摘 要数是人类思维发展到一定阶段，为适应社会生产活动的需要，在符号的帮助下产生的。由于受东西方文化传统、宗教信仰、语言崇拜、地理环境等方面的影响，数字的神化存在着东西方差异 ，但也存在着共性，有着共同的规律,特别体现在数字“七”上。国内有不少学者就数字写过著作和论文,但是极少有人从社会符号学的角度探讨一个具体的数字在东西方文化中的含义。本文先介绍了数字学的起源和发展，接着从社会符号学的角度解释了数字“七”的内涵，外延以及象征意义。之后，文章分别列举了数字“七”在东西方社会、文化、生活上面的运用，从而进一步分析数字“七”在东西方所代表的文化内涵和象征意义，以及它们的相同点和不同点。文章旨在通过列举大量的例子证明数字的文化内涵和象征意义可以反应一种文化、一种思维以及一种行为模式。关键词：社会符号学；数字“七”；文化；含义 table of contentsabstract in english.iabstract in chinese.ii1. introduction.2. numerology review.2.1 history of numerology.2.2 the meaning of meaning.2.3 meaning of the number seven2.3.1 the denotative meaning of the number seven2.3.2 the connotative meaning of the number seven.3. the application of the number seven.3.1 the application of the number seven in the east.3.1.1 the application of the number seven in eastern society3.1.2 the application of the number seven in eastern literature 3.1.3 the application of the number seven in eastern daily life.3.2 the application of the number seven in the west. 3.2.1. the application of the number seven in western society 3.2.2. the application of the number seven in western literature.3.2.3. the application of the number seven in western daily life. .4. conclusion.acknowledgements . .bibliography 1334556777810111113161920211. introductionculture exists in the internal and external modes. it learns and disseminates itself by the help of signs and constructs the special attainments of the human beings (a.l. robert and k. clark, 1952). in the east, culture is named wenhua. from the ancient chinese books, wen means the works, the characteristics, the laws and rites. hua means enlightening people by education. from the aspect of politics, wenhua is used to enlighten people governed by the emperors. in the west, culture is from the latin word “culatura”, referring to agriculture and growing. since the fifteenth century, it has become to mean fostering and developing the ability of human beings.culture includes the following: 1. the mental factor, also called the spirit culture, refers to philosophy, science, art, religion, moral and concept of value- the core of the spirit culture, which is of the most significance. 2. language and sign. they are the methods that culture accumulates and builds up. human beings can only communicate through language and signs. only communication and interaction can create culture. (王福祥,1997,63) numbers are invented to meet the needs of society by the help of symbols, signs and semiotics when human beings develop to a certain stage (苏金智，1991, 23). numerology is a special field in linguistics. in the scientific numerology world, the function of number is to compute as the real number, however, in another world-the mind of human beings, its function is to express and to represent. many numbers became imaginary numbers or fate numbers. they have abundant denotative meanings as well as connotative meanings (王秉钦，1998, 66).owning to the influence of the eastern and western tradition, religious belief, language worship, there are different apotheoses of the numbers between the east and the west. besides, there are many things in common and similar laws, especially in the worship of number. the easterners have their fate numbers, so do the westerns. the developing process of mysterious number always has three stages-apotheoses-generation-imagination(王秉钦，1998, 35).semiotics, as the study of how people use and understand signs, is as old as the writings of plato and aristotle, but its present-day formulations depend on the unusual insights of ferdinand de saussure and charles peirce. the linguistic sign is made of the union of aconcept and a sound image. the meaning of any sign is found in the association createdbetween the sound image and the concept. according to saussure, language is a set of sign system (saussure, 1966, 16). a more common way to define a linguistic sign is that a sign is the combination of a signifier and a signified. saussure saysthe sound image is the signifier and the concept the signified (saussure, 1966, 21). you can also think of a word as a signifier and the thing itrepresents as a signified (though technically these are calledsign and referent, respectively).the sign, as union of a signifier and a signified, has two main characteristics. the bond between the signifier and signified is arbitrary (fisk, 1982, 47).charles peirce categorized three types of relation of the sign and the meaning: 1. iconic: a sign that resembles its object. iconic signs are based on the similarities between the literal meaning of a sign and reference. 2. indexical: a sign that is factually linked to its object. indexical signs are based upon association rather than upon similarity. 3. symbolic. the shape, color, or function of a sign represents the object. the cultural structure (the way in which a given society organizes the world which it perceives, analyzes and transforms) is semiotic structures and therefore systems of units each of which can stand for another. (halliday, m.a.k, 1980, 52)one of de saussures general assumptions was that linguistic would be taken as a model semiotic system and that its basic concepts would be applied to other spheres of social and cultural life (it places undue restrictions on the concept of the sign and related ideas). (halliday, m.a.k, 1980, 47) morris said the meaning of signs includes three aspects: designative meaning, connotative meaning and pragmatic meaning (eugene a. nida, 1993).in society, we are surrounded by signs of various descriptions. they are the essence of human interaction. what we need is a set of coherent systems of classification, so that we can impose order on this seemingly disorderly situation. the sign in turn is a triadic relation：1. initiates identification of the sign. 2. object of the sign. 3. interpret ant or the effect the sign. this paper is to study the meaning of the number seven as a sign in the western and eastern culture from its designative meaning, connotative meaning and symbolic meaning. 2. numerology review2.1 history of numerologythe study of numerology has been developing for many years. with the continuous, great and brilliant contributions made by various scholars, it has three major schools and branches, that is, the kabbalah, the chaldean and the pythagorean.generally speaking, the three major schools have done different contributions to the numerology. although they have few conflicts about the concepts and points of view on numbers, they emphasize on different parts when interpreting. therefore, the scholars intersect these different theories for reference on different occasions.the kabbalah, origined from the mysticism of greece, believes that the knowledge does accompany with the soul and minds of the human beings, not the education systems that people have designed. it derives from greek alphabet. therefore, this school only has twenty-two vibrate numbers between one and four hundred.the alphabet of the new kabbalah is created according to roman alphabet, not greek. in addition to that, when discussing the numerology, the new kabbalah focuses on another part. they stress on the developing process of the whole thing, not limit to the characteristic of the human beings. the numerology regular of the new kabbalah is the same as that of the pythagorean. for instance, the method of calculating year is from the new kabbalah.the chaldean, whose arithmetic has its own system since ancient babylon while adding some concepts of astrology, considers number nine as a pretty holy number because it is dependent from the other vibrate numbers, not corresponding with any other alphabets. this is a notable difference with the rest schools. the chaldean always used the concept of complex number or plural number.the pythagorean school is established by pythagorean. when he was studying mathematics and arithmetic, pythagorean was extremely interested in supernatural and mysterious doctrine. he had done some researches in an egypt alchemy school and put what he achieved into the skills and methods of teaching to his greek students. his students not only wrote these theories by hand but also learnt them by heart. in addition, pythagorean had discovered the right triangle, which was used to represent the individual as well as an interpretive text to the life of human beings (/star/s07lshu/s07lshu01/200505/star_3892.htm).2.2the meaning of meaningmeaning has always been a central topic in human scholarship, though the term “semantics” has only a history of a little over a hundred years. there were discussions of meaning in the works of the greek philosopher plato as early as in the fifth century before christ. in china, lao zi had discussed similar questions even earlier. the fact that over the years numerous dictionaries have been produced with a view to explain the meaning of words also witnesses to its long tradition. the subject concerning the study of meaning is called semantics. more specifically, semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular (胡壮麟, 2001,158).one difficulty in the study of meaning is that the word “meaning” itself has different meanings. in their book the meaning of meaning written in 1923, c. k. ogden and i. a. richards presents a “representative list of the main definitions which reputable students of meaning have favored”(p.186). g. leech in a more moderate tone recognizes seven types of meaning in his semantics (p.23), first published in 1974, as follows:1. conceptual meaning logical, cognitive, or denotative content 2. connotative meaning what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to.3. social meaning what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.4. affective meaning what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer.5. reflected meaning what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression.6. collocative meaning what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word. 7. thematic meaning what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.leech says that the first type of meaning- conceptual meaning-makes up the central part. it is “denotative” in that it is concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to. in this sense, conceptual meaning overlaps to a large extent with the notion of reference. but the term connotative used in the name of the second type of meaning is used in a sense different from that in philosophical discussions. philosophers use connotation, opposite to denotation, to mean the properties of the entity a word denotes.2.3 the meaning of the number seven2.3.1 the denotative meaning of the number seven semiotics takes the number seven as a text to analyze, the objective of which is to study the meaning system produced from the text, and the special signs, symbols, and the structure of the text. analyzing denotative meaning of the number seven is to discover the common and external meaning, the regular and the structure of the sigh of the number seven. this study takes two kinds of methods: (1) diachronic analysis: refers to the structure relation of syntagm, considering the text as a continuous link of the thing to analyze the narrating structure (fisk, 1982, 62; berger, 1987, 14). the meaning of the number seven is one more than six, having seven of the thing specified. (2) synchronic analysis: analyze the paradigm of the sign. from a group of related factors, choose the factor or units which needed. all the units in the same group must have the same characteristic, however each unit could distinguish from the rest in this group as well (fisk. 1986, 61). synchronic analysis of the text is to find the invisible opposite mode and the meaning produced (berger, 1987, 145). this paper studies the synchronic analysis of the number seven, aiming to compare the various opinions and views on it between the east and the west, their similarities and differences in the texts. 2.3.2 the connotative meaning of the number seventhis paper studies the social and culture meaning of the number seven except the denotative meaning and presenting structure. the connotative meaning includes two parts. one refers to the social and cultural value, which is always a myth. the relation between a signifier and a signified is arbitrary, although, the sign could represent the nature and the essence. but the text links to the certain social and cultural meaning, therefore, the sign is the process of choice and combination, representing the catalog and the distinction of the reality (barthes, 1972, 113). through the analysis of the social myth, we can interpret the connotative meaning of the number seven, and it reflects the social and cultural value system while influencing the social value and the knowledge system. affected by the value, life experience, emotions, culture, and religion of the signer (barthes,1968, 89, 1972, 115；seiter,1987, 29-30), the number seven means samsara, destiny, reincarnation, the ending and a brand new beginning, satisfaction after a lot of suffering in the east. while the number seven refers to the magic and holy power of the god, mystery, completeness and perfection, samsara, the ending and a brand new beginning, satisfaction after a lot of suffering, occult, happiness and luck in the west. the similarity is that the connotative meanings of the number seven in the east and west both have the meaning of “samsara, the ending and a brand new beginning, satisfaction after a lot of suffering”. the number seven have such abundant meanings that people both in the east and west like it and apply it to every aspect of life. 3. the application of the number seven3.1 the application of the number seven in the east3.1.1 the application of the number seven in eastern societyin the east, on the basis of analytical dictionary of chinese characters (说文解字,许慎：七,阳之正也。从一, 微阴从中斜出也。) and nine chapters on the mathematical art （九章算术）, the number seven only means the number, one more than six. however, the symbolic meaning of the number seven is influenced by confucianism, buddhism and taoism to a larger extent. it stresses on destiny, samsara, reincarnation, transmigration, the ending and a brand new beginning after a lot of suffering.for example, there is this fable entitled “creating features for hun tun” (making apertures in the nebulae， 混沌开窍) from book of master zhuang/chuang tzu（庄子）. according to which, in ancient times there is an emperor in the south named shu and another emperor in the north named hu. in between lies the territory of the central emperor whose name is hun tun. being close friends shu and hu make constant visits to each other and so have to cross the territory of hun tun frequently who is ever so hospitable. for this shu and hu are very grateful and they have always wanted to repay his hospitality. it occurs to them that although everyone has eyes, ears, mouth and nose which in chinese are called the seven apertures, hun tun somehow has been deprived of them. consequently they decide to create the seven apertures for him. so every day they go and dig one aperture in hun tun. one can imagine that what a great tragedy they have ended up in! at the end of the seven days, hun tun dies.with this fable, zhuang zi aims to make it clear that man should not be allowed to tamper at will with what is created by nature. this is the so-called lao zhuang philosophy of “leaving things well alone” or “doing through not doing”, “govern by doing nothing that goes against nature”(无为而治). it has a little in common with philosophy of buddhism, which is everything has its destiny and benevolence merit. things form cause and start from pratitya-smutpada (万事皆缘起), however, sunya is rupa (in buddhism it means the immaterial is the material 色即是空). in analects of confucius (论语), confucius says, “at