Multilingual Collaboration in Electronic Meetings

Abstract

Groups in which participants do not speak the same language frequently find communication difficult. Yet, multilingual meetings are common as a form of collaboration. To overcome this language barrier, banks, government agencies, hospitals, the courts, and many other institutions have relied upon human translators to enable meeting participants to exchange ideas and opinions. For example, the United Nations General Assembly’s discussions, conferences within the European Union, multinational corporations’ business negotiations, and many other meetings are conducted almost daily, requiring large amounts of interpreters’ scarce expertise and time.