Multilingual human-computer interactions: from information access to language learning

Abstract
This paper describes our recent work in developing multilingual conversational systems that support human-computer interactions. Our approach is based on the premise that a common semantic rep- resentation can be extracted from the input for all languages, at least within the context of restricted domains. In our design of such sys- tems, language dependent information is separated from the system kernel as much as possible, and encoded in external data structures. The internal system manager, discourse and dialogue component, and database are all maintained in a language transparent form. We will describe two possible application areas for such multilingual ca- pabailities: on-line information access using multilingual spoken di- alogue, and the learning and maintenance of a foreign language us- ing a multilingual conversational system.

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