MULTILINGUAL DIALOG SYSTEMS

Spoken dialog systems demonstrate a high degree of usability in many restricted domains, and these range from air travel, train schedules, restaurant guides, ferry timetables, electronic automobile classifieds, weather information and email access. A user typically interacts with these systems to retrieve certain information for example a train schedule; or to complete a task, such as booking a flight, reserving a restaurant table, or finding an apartment. Dialog modeling in these systems plays an important role in assisting users to achieve their goals effectively. This chapter presents an introduction to multilingual dialog systems in two parts: the first part describes the key components of a multilingual dialog system, using an illustrative example based on the CU FOREX system. The second part introduces the various kinds of dialog models, highlights the advantages of the mixed-initiative dialog model, and presents a possible data-driven approach for its implementation.