How can groups communicate when they use different languages?

Many office systems are based on various types of messages, forms, or other documents. When users of such systems need to communicate with people who use different document types, some kind of translation is necessary. In this paper, we explore the space of general solutions to this translation problem and propose several specific solutions to it. After first illustrating the problem in the Information Lens electronic messaging system, we identify two partly conflicting objectives that any translation scheme should satisfy: preservation of meaning and autonomous evolution of group languages. Then we partition the space of possible solutions to this problem in terms of the set theoretic relations between group languages and a common language. This leads to four primary solution classes and we illustrate and evaluate each one. Finally, we describe a composite scheme that combines many of the best features of the other schemes. Even though our examples deal primarily with extensions to the Information Lens system, the analysis also suggests how other kinds of office systems might exploit specialization hierarchies of document types to simplify the translation problem. Computer-based office systems often use various types of messages, forms, and other documents to communicate information. When all the people who wish to communicate with each other use exactly the same types of documents, translation problems do not arise. However, when people want to communicate with others who use different kinds of documents, some kind of translation is necessary. The needs for such translation seem likely to become increasingly common as more and more diverse kinds of systems are linked into heterogeneous networks. We have been particularly concerned with one instance of this problem that arises in the context of template-based communication systems (e.g. [Malone et.al.87b], [Tsichritzis 82]). The problem is how users of such systems can communicate with other users who have a different set of templates. Other examples of the problem may arise when users of different word processing systems wish to exchange documents, or when different companies wish to use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards to exchange business forms such as purchase orders and invoices. In this paper, we will explore the space of general solutions to this translation problem and propose several specific schemes for solving it. Our primary goal has been to design extensions to the Information Lens system ([Malone et. al. 87a], [Malone et. al. 87b]) that allow different groups to communicate with each other when (1) the groups use some, but not all, of the same types of messages, and (2) the message types used by each group may change over time. In the first section of the paper, we illustrate the problem as it arises in the context of the Information Lens system. In the second section, we state the problem more precisely in terms of the objectives that we want its solution to satisfy. In Section 3, we explore the space of possible solutions by suggesting a dimension along which to partition the space and examining a representative solution for each class. In Section 4, we propose a new scheme that combines most of the desirable features of the solutions we explored. Finally, we conclude by hinting at the implications that this research might have for more general contexts.