This edited book provides a multi-disciplinary approach to the topics of translation and cross-cultural communication in times of war and conflict. It examines the historical and contemporary experiences of interpreters in war and in war crimes trials, as well as considering policy issues in communication difficulties in war-related contexts. The range of perspectives incorporated in this volume will appeal to scholars, practitioners and policy-makers, particularly in the fields of translating and interpreting, conflict and war studies, and military history.
This book sheds light on the important role played by interpreters during the Spanish Civil War, offering a historical overview of the ways in which interpreters on both sides mediated the myriad linguistic, cultural, and ethical difficulties of wartime communication. Drawing on archives, interpreters’ memoirs, and testimonies from their own children, the volume extends beyond traditional historiographic accounts to demonstrate the significance of interpreters’ work in facilitating communication during the war across a range of settings, including in combat, hospitals, interrogations, detention camps, and propaganda. Baigorri-Jalón showcases the diverse backgrounds of these interpreters through individual and collective portraits, paying special attention to the work of the many women working as interpreters during the conflict. In turning its attention to lessons from the past, the book reaffirms the work of interpreters in present-day international conflicts toward better understanding the ethical dilemmas they face, in wars, humanitarian aid, demobilization tasks, and multilingual criminal proceedings. This volume, the first book in the Routledge Research on Translation and Interpreting History series, will be of interest to scholars in translation and interpreting studies, particularly those interested in historical and sociological approaches as well as Spanish Civil War scholarship.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book raises new questions and provides different perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, ethics and protection of interpreters in war while investigating the substance and agents of Japanese war crimes and legal aspects of interpreters’ taking part in war crimes. Informed by studies on interpreter ethics in conflict, historical studies of Japanese war crimes and legal discussion on individual liability in war crimes, Takeda provides a detailed description and analysis of the 39 interpreter defendants and interpreters as witnesses of war crimes at British military trials against the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pacific War, and tackles ethical and legal issues of various risks faced by interpreters in violent conflict. The book first discusses the backgrounds, recruitment and wartime activities of the accused interpreters at British military trials in addition to the charges they faced, the defence arguments and the verdicts they received at the trials, with attention to why so many of the accused were Taiwanese and foreign-born Japanese. Takeda provides a contextualized discussion, focusing on the Japanese military’s specific linguistic needs in its occupied areas in Southeast Asia and the attributes of interpreters who could meet such needs. In the theoretical examination of the issues that emerge, the focus is placed on interpreters’ proximity to danger, visibility and perceived authorship of speech, legal responsibility in war crimes and ethical issues in testifying as eyewitnesses of criminal acts in violent hostilities. Takeda critically examines prior literature on the roles of interpreters in conflict and ethical concerns such as interpreter neutrality and confidentiality, drawing on legal discussion of the ineffectiveness of the superior orders defence and modes of individual liability in war crimes. The book seeks to promote intersectoral discussion on how interpreters can be protected from exposure to manifestly unlawful acts such as torture.
This handbook offers a broad-ranging overview of the study of translating and interpreting in conflict and crisis settings and takes the field in new directions. Covering a wide selection of multimodal contexts that build on the fundamentals of translation, interpreting, and their in-between hybrid forms of mediation, the handbook is divided into four parts. The opening part covers perspectives on policy and practices, whether contemporary or historical, and cases truly span the globe, from Peru and Brazil, over Belgium and Sierra Leone, to Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong. International developments require profound considerations about the professionalisation of access to language in times of crises, not least in contexts of humanitarian negotiation or conflict zone interpreting–these form the second part. The subsequent part deals with spheres of community in which language needs are positioned within frames of agency, positionality, and trust, and the challenges that these face. The contributions build on cases where interpreters act as catalysts for translation needs in settings of humanitarian aid and beyond. The final part considers language strategies and solutions in crises. This handbook is the essential guide to translation and interpreting in conflict and crisis settings for advanced students and researchers of translation and interpreting studies and will be of wide interest in peace studies, political science, and beyond.
Emphasising the significance of foreign languages at the centre of war and conflict, this book argues that 'foreignness' and foreign languages are key to our understanding of what happens in war. Through case studies the book traces the role of languages in intelligence, military deployment, soldier/civilian meetings, occupation and peace building.
The relationship between translation and conflict is highly relevant in today's globalised and fragmented world, and this is attracting increased academic interest. This collection of essays was inspired by the first international conference to directly address the translator and interpreter's involvement in situations of military and ideological conflict, and its representation in fiction. The collection adopts an interdisciplinary approach, and the contributors to the volume bring to bear a variety of perspectives informed by media studies, historiography, literary scholarship and self-reflective interpreting and translation practice. The reader is presented with compelling case studies of the 'embeddedness' of translators and interpreters, either on the ground or as portrayed in fiction, and of their roles in mediating, memorizing or rewriting conflict. The theoretical reflection which the essays generate regarding mediation and neutrality, ethical involvement and responsibility, and the implications for translator and interpreter training, will be of interest to researchers in translation, interpreting, media, intercultural and postcolonial studies.
This book explores the differing ways in which language has been used to try to make sense of the First World War. Offering further developments in an innovative approach to the study of the conflict, it develops a transnational viewpoint of the experience of war to reveal less expected areas of language use during the conflict. Taking the study of the First World War far beyond the Western Front, chapters examine experiences in many regions, including Africa, Armenia, post-war Australia, Russia and Estonia, and a variety of contexts, from prisoner-of-war and internment camps, to food queues and post-war barracks. Drawing upon a wide variety of languages, such as Esperanto, Flemish, Italian, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Romanian and Turkish, Multilingual Environments in the Great War brings together language experiences of conflict from both combatants and the home front, connecting language and literature with linguistic analysis of the immediacy of communication.
This book is volume two of the writings of David Sissons, who first established his academic career as a political scientist specialising in Japanese politics, and later shifted his focus to the history of Australia–Japan relations. In this volume, we reproduce his writings on Japanese politics, the Pacific War and Australian war crimes trials after the war. He was a pioneer in these fields, carrying out research across cultural and language borders, and influenced numerous researchers who followed in his footsteps. Much of what he wrote, however, remained unpublished at the time of his death in 2006, and so the editors have included a selection of his hitherto unpublished work along with some of his published writings. Breaking Japanese Diplomatic Codes, edited by Desmond Ball and Keiko Tamura, was published in 2013, and the first volume of Bridging Australia and Japan was published in 2016. This book completes this series, which reproduces many of David Sissons’ writings. The current volume covers a wide range of topics, from Japanese wartime intentions towards Australia, the Cowra Breakout, and Sissons’ early writings on Japanese politics. Republished in this volume is his comprehensive essay on the Australian war crimes trials, which influenced the field of military justice research. Georgina Fitzpatrick and Keiko Tamura have also contributed essays reflecting on his research. Sissons was an extraordinarily meticulous researcher, leaving no stone unturned in his search for accuracy and completeness of understanding, and should be considered one of Australia’s major historians. His writings deal not only with diplomatic negotiations and decision-making, but also the lives of ordinary and often nameless people and their engagements with their host society. His warm humanity in recording ordinary people’s lives as well as his balanced examination of historical incidents and issues from both Australian and Japanese perspectives are hallmarks of his scholarship.
This book focuses on a long- neglected yet important topic in China’s translation history: interpreter/ translator training and wartime translation studies. It examines the military interpreter training programmes after the outbreak of the Pacific War (1941–1945), further revealing the indispensable role of translation and interpreting in war. The author explores the relationship between linguistic education and war context in the China- Burma- India Theatre, where international cooperation was salient. Some 4,000 interpreting officers played a vital role in assisting in air defence, transportation, training of the Chinese army and coordinating expeditionary operations. The book seeks to bring these interpreters to life, telling the stories of why they joined the war, how they were trained and what they did in the war. Through the study of training programmes, historical archives, accounts and trainees’ memoirs, discussions revolve around key strands of education, including curriculums, textbooks and training methods. Utilising foreign language education practices as its main case study, the book analyses these through the framework of linguistic and translation theories. The book contributes to Chinese interpreting history by exploring its first-ever nationwide professional interpreting (and translation) training practices, and will inspire scholars of translation/ interpreting training, world modernhistory and foreign language education in general.
In the age of information, an essential priority in the context of international education is the development of language learning and its inconsistencies. The gap between language and education has intermittently grown through time, with mistaken assumptions about how linguistic shortcomings are being solved around the world. Research on comparative educational approaches to teaching verbiage and the foundation of future language development are instrumental in positively impacting the global narrative of dialectal education. International Approaches to Bridging the Language Gap is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of second language teaching as well as social developments regarding intercultural learning. While highlighting topics including curricular approaches, digital competence, and linguistic disparities, this book is ideally designed for language instructors, linguists, teachers, researchers, public administrators, cultural centers, policymakers, government officials, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the latest advancements of multilingual education.