Week 11
Unit 7 Time and Space
Questions for discussion:
1.I f you were invited to another family’s house for dinner when would you arrive?
2.H ow long would you have to wait in a line in the post office before you became upset?
3.H ow long do you think a party at which dinner is served should last?
4.I f you were having a party in your class, how many days in advance would you invite your teachers or students from another college?
5.W hen first meeting a newcomer to your class or a friend’s parents, an appropriate amount of time to talk with them would be minutes.
6.I f you had an appointment with a professor at 8:00 and arrived at 8:45, how would the professor react?
I.Chronemics
Chronemics is the study of how people
perceive and use time.
(i) The Silent Language (p239-241)
1. Traditions and conventions are silent in
the sense that they are often unconscious.
2. What would an American businessman
do if he is 3 minutes late for an appointment? What if 4 minutes late? 5 minutes late?
3. What would you do in the
about-mentioned situation?
4. The Western tradition of envisioning
time as a line:
※The sense of time:
1) Time is linear. Western cultures think
time is linear — a flow from the past
to the present to the future.
2) Time is cyclical. Life on earth evolved
in response to the cycles of day and
night and the ebb and flow of the
tides.
(ii) Monochronic and Polychronic Time (p271-275)
1. What is M-Time and P-Time? Which do you think is the dominating time system in our culture?
1) Monochronic time means paying attention to and doing only one thing at a time – events scheduled as separate items.
2) Polychronic time means being involved with many things at once.
2. What is the philosophy underlying each of the time system?
1) P-time stresses involvement of people and completion of transactions rather than adherence to present schedules. Appointments are not taken as seriously and, as a consequence, are frequently broken. P-time is treated as less tangible than M-time.
Weakness: Matters in a polychromic culture seem in a constant state of flux. Appointments are frequently broken.
2) In M-time system, social and business life is commonly schedule-dominated. By
scheduling, we compartmentalize; this makes it possible to concentrate on one thing at a time, but it also reduces the context. M-time is also tangible. M-time scheduling is used as a classification system that orders life.
Weakness: Life in general is at times unpredictable. M-time reduces the context and alienate people from themselves and from others.
(iii) Social Time: The Heartbeat of Culture (p244-247)
1.W hat does the author want to tell us from
his experience in Brazil and the questionnaire between students in Niteroi and those in Fresno?
2.T here aren’t unanimous perceptions of
time among culturally different people.
Even within one country, ideas of time and punctuality vary considerably from place to place. Different regions and even cities have their own distinct rhythms and
