However the speaker s and listener s frames may differ dramatically leading to faulty communication. The British speaker assumes hot black tea served in a pot with a porcelain cup. The Chinese assumes hot, green tea in porcelain cups with no handles. Though all of these are legitimate possibilities from the one statement, it is the frame that determines the interpretation. Cross-cultural communication is almost impossible without a keen understanding of different culture s frames.
Individual perception is influenced by one s frame and that frame varies from culture to culture.
Even if the base diction and syntax appear to be the same, the subcultural frames provide for vastly different interpretations. This is beautifully and dramatically articulated in Barbara Kingsolver s Pigs in Heaven. During the discussion regarding her living arrangements, two distinct frames clash. The first conversation to illustrate this occurs between two principle characters Annawake Fourkiller, a Cherokee Nation lawyer, and Jax Thibodeux, the adoptive mother s boyfriend. Annawake contends that the tribe cannot survive if the children are raised white.