Multilingual communication in electronic meetings

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated how Group Support Systems (GSS) are superior in many cases to traditional, oral meetings. These electronic meeting systems typically provide participants with parallel communication (all group members can exchange typed comments simultaneously), automated record keeping (all comments are stored on a disk file), and anonymity (no participant can tell where comments originated).The use of the systems has become widespread; one leading GSS product, GroupSystems, is used on every continent except Antarctica [5]. However, most GSS research has been based upon groups using English [6]. Some GSS studies have been conducted in other countries, but it is not always clear what language was used in the meetings. Although English is used in many locations throughout the world, most people prefer to use their native language when communicating. Meeting participants using other languages can benefit from the use of a GSS. Further, combining a GSS with automatic translation can yield an order of magnitude increase in the productivity of multilingual groups.