The Connotations of Numbers in Colloquial Arabic: A Pragmalinguistic Study Maisa S. Jaber Department of English Language and Literature, Al-Balqa Applied University, Amman, Jordan Sereen M. Jubran Department of English Language and Literature, Al-Balqa Applied University, Amman, Jordan Hana A. Daana Department of English Language and Literature, Al-Balqa Applied University, Amman, Jordan Abstract—In Arabic culture, numbers have meanings based on old traditions and cultural beliefs. Some numbers have deep spiritual and symbolic meanings that may affect a person’s life path. Each group of numbers has a specific meaning attached to verbal number representations. This study pragmalinguistically analyses the use of numbers and their contextual connotations in Arabic. Six numbers are evaluated: two, ten, one hundred, one thousand, seven, and sixty. The study analyses these numbers in different contexts, providing the readers with expressions that portray negative and positive connotations. The study reveals that the number sixty has a negative connotation while ten, one hundred, and one thousand are used to denote exaggeration. The number two is used to express how many times something has been done. Finally, the number seven is a familiar number in different cultures with different connotations. The study also reveals that the connotations of the said numbers are related to social, religious, and cultural values. The study ends with two recommendations for further studies to analyse number connotations in other languages and to conduct comparative studies. Index Terms—numbers, culture, negative connotation, positive connotation, colloquial Arabic I. INTRODUCTION Culture divides people into groups. Ethnicity, gender, location, religion, language, and many other factors play significant roles in shaping one's cultural identity. Culture educates individuals on thinking, interacting, and perceiving the world. In other words, culture is the lens through which one views the world. However, every person has a unique heritage. Even though two people will share certain commonalities in the same situation, the problem is that they may have different everyday cultural experiences or perspectives. Language is an essential tool for socialization. When a person interacts using another language, they are involved in the culture of its people. Because of this, it is only possible to comprehend other people's cultures by learning their languages, as language is deeply rooted in each culture. Both language and culture define a person's beliefs, traditions, identity, and habits. The relationship between language and culture has always occupied sociolinguists’, psycholinguists’, philosophers’, and philologists’ attentions. It is unsurprising that many studies have recently focused on the pihsneitaler between language, culture, and the world. The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure theorised that “different languages cut up reality in different ways” (Andersen, 1988, p. 27). He posited that every language is a mirror that reflects its speakers’ representations of reality. Saussure suggested a mental link between concepts and labels. He was the first to introduce the term ‘langue’, internal knowledge, or competence as Chomsky referred to it. Saussure also introduced the term ‘parole’, which corresponds to performance in Chomsky’s hypothesis (Thomas & Wareing, 2004). Saussure hypothesized that language is composed of signs of two faces just like a coin. No face can be dispensable. The signified (concept) and the signifier (label) and the relation that connects them is the sign (Thomas & Wareing, 2004). Sapir pioneered the notion of language embedded in culture (Mahdi et al., 2012). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Linguistic Relativity, explains how language affects how we think and interpret reality. This theory has always been controversial. As a matter of fact, this culture-language relationship hypothesis proposed by Sapir and Whorf has two facets or principles. Linguistic relativity theorises that every culture interprets the world differently, and this interpretation is reflected in their language (Brown, 2014). In other words, culture affects how language is used and the terms used in a language. Culture shapes one’s language. Culture gives meaning to the words people speak. It determines if any given word carries a positive or negative meaning. Furthermore, cultures provide the required environment for languages to develop. Some expressions may indicate something in a particular culture but indicate something else in another. Krasniqi (2019) provided an example of the expression ‘a good day’ in European culture indicates a sunny day, whereas, in African culture, it indicates a rainy day. This difference in interpreting the term ‘good’ ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 13, No. 7, pp. 1853-1859, July 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1307.31 © 2023 ACADEMY PUBLICATION