Framing and Text Interpretation Across Languages and Cultures: A Case Study

Many postgraduate students of a non-English-speaking background (NESB) studying at Western universities experience difficulties – more so than their undergraduate counterparts. Reading has been cited as one of the most neglected problems facing postgraduate international students. This paper is part of a larger investigation, exploring the reading traditions and practices which influence the interpretation of two text types, academic and general text by postgraduate students from Thailand and India studying in the areas of Business, Humanities, Engineering/Science and Health Sciences. Data were collected from case studies conducted at an Australian University and at universities in Thailand and India. The data will be used to raise awareness among academics of language use by different cultures in the cross-cultural academic environment. The research method known as ‘frame analysis’ has been applied when gathering data on the framing devices used by students when interpreting texts. Results presented in this paper show that there are various subtle changes in the framing strategiesused by a Thai postgraduate student between the firstand third semester.