Declining the interpreter’s role in World War I

Peter James Cowley

doi:10.52034/lanstts.v15i.394

Abstract

In this article I will examine autobiographical and fictionalised accounts of World War One by three French interpreters: the writer André Maurois, the painter Paul Maze, and the cartoonist Hansi. All three worked as officiers de liaison with the British Expeditionary Force, discharging their duties in remarkably divergent ways and accounting for them equally differently. My focus will be on how their accounts can be read as representations of the role of the interpreter, and at the same time how the figure of the interpreter, underpinned by the assumption of neutrality, is deployed to represent other activities in conflict zones.

Highlights

Centenary celebrations invite reflection, and sometimes even comparison
In the context of a larger project exploring representations of translators and interpreters in generically disparate contexts, I take the centenary of World War One as an opportune moment to explore the figure and figurative power of the interpreter during that conflict
My specific focus in this article will be three French interpreters, by which I mean enlisted officers with advanced language skills assigned as officiers de liaison, one of whose primary tasks was interpreting

Summary

Preamble

Sometimes even comparison. We are tempted to measure ourselves against the past, and evaluate the progress we have made — or the extent of our diminishment. In the context of a larger project exploring representations of translators and interpreters in generically disparate contexts, I take the centenary of World War One as an opportune moment to explore the figure and figurative power of the interpreter during that conflict. My analysis will not be concerned with questions of generic conformity, but must find another point of comparison. That point is the common trope of regret at being segregated from combat, which can be found in each of the texts under consideration. While this trope plays out differently in each account, in each it can be read as a prism that crystallises different representations of the interpreter in the Great War

Regret

The passive voice

The detached observer

The active voice