Linguistic Barriers to International Marketing: Information Overload In Non-Dominant Languages

Abstract

If consumers are given too much information, information overload is said to exist and the result is less effective consumer decision making. The relationship between information overload and linguistic ability was investigated in this study. American born/English speakers bilingual in Taiwanese and Taiwanese born speakers bilingual in English were presented with low and high levels of consumer information. As predicted, high levels of information can act as a stressor affecting consumer decision making in a non-native language prior to affecting decision making in a dominant language. If information overload occurs quicker in non-dominant languages, linguistic barriers to cross-cultural marketing must take into account the amount of information provided.