Title: Evaluation and revision of translation-mediated communication in a multilingual electronic meeting

Authors: Milam Aiken; Bidyut Hazarika

Addresses: School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677, USA. ' School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677, USA

Abstract: This article examines how round-trip translations can be used to increase the accuracy of multilingual electronic meetings. An experiment was conducted in which five groups of students typed comments in English about the parking problem on campus and evaluated back translations to estimate forward translation accuracies from English to German and Spanish. Results showed that forward translations to German and Spanish met the groups' minimum standards for comprehension. In addition, group members thought the meeting system was easy-to-use and useful, but they were unlikely to make comment revisions, even with poor understanding of back translations.

Keywords: electronic meetings; machine translation; round-trip translations; translation-mediated communication; multilingual e-meetings; online meetings; comprehension; translation accuracy; English; German; Spanish.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2012.049469

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2012 Vol.6 No.4, pp.379 - 394

Published online: 14 Nov 2014 *

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