Abstract: The different cultural backgrounds of the East and the West instill people with different world views, as well as different modes of thinking. Therefore, it forms the different time orientations, and the different concepts of time. This paper compares different concepts of time and the different time orientations, and discusses the root causes. The aim of this paper is to reduce the conflict of cross-cultural communication and enhance the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication.

Keywords: time orientation, time concepts, differences, cross-cultural communication

摘要：在东西方不同的文化背景下，造就了人们不同的世界观以及思维模式。因此形成了不同的时间取向，以及时间观念的差异。本文通过对不同时间取向及时间观念的比较，探究不同文化间时间观念的差异及其根源，从而减少跨文化交际时的冲突，并提出了减少交际障碍的途径，从而提高跨文化交际的有效性。

关键词：时间取向，时间观念，差异，跨文化交际