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Availability of Multilingual Chat
Communication in 3D Online Virtual Space
Takashi Yoshino and Katsuya Ikenobu
Faculty of Engineering, Wakayama University,
930 Sakaedani, Wakayama, Japan
yoshino@sys.wakayama-u.ac.jp
http://www.wakayama-u.ac.jp/
~
yoshino/
Abstract.
There is a possibility that a 3D online virtual space can be-
come a more familiar communication medium because of the widespread
use of the Internet. However, language differences pose significant barri-
ers to intercultural communications. We have developed a multilingual
chat communication support system in Second Life as an initial research.
Second Life is one of the most popular 3D online virtual spaces in the
world. We have carried out a multilingual chat communication experi-
ment in Second Life. From this experiment, we have found the following.
(1) It is important that a machine translation machine make it visible
in a 3D virtual space. A user can easily learn the usage of a machine
translation. (2) There is not understanding other party's language in the
problem because appearances of each avatar are free. It is important for
users to show translation language pairs not to give confusion.
Keywords:
multilingual chat communication, 3D online virtual space,
machine translation.
1
Introduction
The number of accounts on Second Life[1], which is a three-dimensional vir-
tual space, has increased to more than 14 million. Approximately 51% of these
users are English-speakers[2], and English is used even in chats with non-English
speakers. However, there are many users who cannot speak English well, and
therefore, language can become a communication barrier.
Several support methods for communication in a virtual space have been
proposed[3,4]. These researches aim to enable communication by using voice
conversations in the same language. Research on multilingual chat communica-
tions support in a virtual space has been carried out a little. The Internet and
technologies supported by high-performance computers have enabled communi-
cation in the virtual world for the first time.
This research presents the development of a multilingual chat communications
support system in a three-dimensional virtual space. Further, we show the result
of experiments that use multilingual chat communications support in a virtual
space.
