Acknowledgements致謝

    

    I would like to express my gratitude to the following people for their support and assistance in the process of my research and writing this thesis:對于在寫作這篇dissertation的過程中，支持我和幫我來繼續進行研究的人，我想表達我的感激之情。
First, I would like to thank my supervisor Associate Professor Liu Baoquan for his insightful ideas and valuable guidance to this thesis. I would also like to thank a high-school classmate Zhang Tianshi who helped me a lot in collecting the survey samples in the United States, without her I would not be able to finish the empirical study. I am also grateful, to all the other teachers who gave me advice and encouragement in my years at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, including Professor Wang Xiaoqun, Professor Chen Zhendong, Associate Professor Li Feng, Associate Professor Liu Xiangjun, Associate Professor Qiao Xiaomei and Associate Professor Zhao Ke.http://ukthesis.org/dissertation_sample/

A thank-you goes to my fellow classmates who have made my life a colorful and enjoyable experience uring the past four years of undergraduate studies. I cherish our friendship forever.  

Finally, I want to give special thanks to my family members and my boyfriend. They are always my reliable spiritual support.Abstract

最后，我要特別感謝我的家人和我的男朋友。他們永遠都是我的精神支撐。

Time conception is an important constituent of culture. Current intercultural communication studies on time perception differences are mainly based on big cultural groups, such as Chinese culture, European culture or American culture. Such studies are at an increased risk of two-dimensional limitation, which is likely to form cultural stereotyping or over-generalization. However, in practical communication, two Chinese generations may have distinct cultural features; while the same generation of two cultural groups may share the same cultural feature due to their similar background of age. This study discusses time conception under the influence of cultural globalization after 1980. Both Chinese and western youths were deeply influenced by cultural globalization since 1980s, especially under the access to Internet and other modern high-tech communication tools. 20世紀80年代以來，中國和西方的青少年受到全球化的影響很深，特別是在訪問互聯網等現代高科技通訊工具方面。

A survey instrument was designed and collected for this study. Research objects are Chinese youths born in 1980s and American youths of Generation-Y(1980-1994). The questionnaire covers arguments concerning to Monochronic-time v. Polychronic-time; Past, Present and Future; Linear time view v. Circular time view, etc. The two groups of youths on analysis were found sharing a similar time perception. Such a result differs from those previous intercultural studies that based on general cultural groups. This study may limit cultural stereotyping to a certain extent from a generation perspective. Under the trend of cultural globalization, a new understanding of time perception is beneficial to better communication and mutual respect.本文從時代角度出發，從一定程度上避免了文化定式。這種對時間觀念的客觀理解有利于跨文化交流與研究。

 

Key Words: Time Perception; Intercultural Communication; "80’s"; Cultural Globalization

關鍵詞：時間觀念；跨文化交際；80后；文化全球化
Time Perception as the Topic

Time is one of the most significant but confusing concepts of nonverbal communication. Most of the times, we perceive and use time unconsciously. The study of how we perceive time in nonverbal communication is called chronemics. The way we structure our time and react to time is a powerful communication tool. The beatings of the clock-hands showing the exact hour and minute would not have any meaning to us if there is no human activity or natural change attached to the specific time. Thus, the concept of time is closely connected with the natural phenomena and life style of the given society. 

    Time perception greatly affects our lifestyle, movements, speed of speech, and the amount of time set for listening. People's different time perceptions may cause cultural misunderstandings, and even confusion in cross-cultural communications. Time perception is among the most important components of one's values and worldviews. It reflects how people manage time, how people value the past, present and future, and even people's understanding about the world.

As a universal topic, time has been studied widely in various fields. As Timmer points out, "Time is a fundamental symbolic category that we use for talking about the orderliness of social life. In a modern organization, just as in an agrarian society, time appears to impose a structure of workdays, calendars, careers, and life-cycles that we learn and live in as part of our cultures. This temporal order has an 'already made' character of naturalness to it, a model of the way things are"(Trimmer 1976:106).

 

1.2 Research Questions研究問題

As time perception is so important, it as been studied by cultural scholars and sociologists in various fields.
隨著時間來進行感知是非常重要的，它已被各個領域的文化學者和社會學家來做了一定的研究。
Most of the studies on time perceptions are based on the simple division of big culture groups and draw the conclusion that there are distincly differences among the groups. For example, Chinese are of circular time view and Americans are of linear time view. Some define that Chinese cherish the past more than Americans do, because Americans are future-oriented. The premise of such studies is somewhat too simplified, for we can never classify people regardless of individual characteristics. The aforementioned conclusions may easily lead to stereotyping, and mislead people to the conclusion that Chinese and Americans cannot communicate with each other successfully. This thesis chooses China and the United States as the representatives of eastern and western culture. The study seeks to examine the following research questions:

  1 What are the features of time perceptions in different cultural groups?

2 Is there any stereotype concerning time perceptions in different cultural groups?

 

1.3 Organization of the Paper 文章的組織情況

This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One gives the basic information of this thesis, in which the research questions and purpose are presented. Chapter Two introduces the previous theories and achievements in terms of the different time perception between eastern and western cultural groups. Based on these academic information, Chapter Three illustrates the study I made. This research is made by questionnaire interviews and all of them are conducted after a careful research of the previous academic achievements. Chapter Four is the discussion of the study. The analyses of the research are all made according to the purpose of this study. The last chapter draws a conclusion of this thesis. Based on the previous achievements and the study I made, one may find that the 1980s generation of China may have much in common in terms of time conception with the same generation of the Unites States.
基于對過去取得的成績和我所做的研究進行對比，可能從中會發現，在20世紀80年代一代的中國大家可能存在的時間概念與同一代的美國有許多共同之處。