Abstract
This article presents an overview of interpreting in conflict zones and scenarios in different periods of history as represented in the papers included in the special issue. Conflict between parties with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds is pervasive in human history and has always involved interpreters in the sense of intercultural and linguistic mediators. Although interpreting became highly professionalized from the second half of the twentieth century, language brokering in conflict zones is still an unregulated occupation mainly pursued by untrained interpreters. Furthermore, there is a lack of recognition of the specific role that interpreters in conflict situations play. In spite of an increasing awareness of the role of interpreters in conflict zones and an expanding scholarly literature on the subject, we believe that more studies adopting a historical standpoint are needed. The aim of this special volume is to shed light on the characteristics, ideology, status, neutrality, occupation, role in the different stages of the conflict, training issues, and working practices and procedures of interpreters in conflict zones.
Highlights
Conflict, and language brokering in conflict zones, has been pervasive throughout human history
Lucía Ruiz Rosendo & Clementina Persaud multilingual historical events, such as the signing of treaties, peace accords and military and trade negotiations, would have necessarily required language intermediaries for their implementation, whether or not the presence or qualifications of the interpreter is mentioned in the historical record
Among the possible reasons for the invisibility of the interpreter in the historical record are: (1) the primacy of the written word over the spoken word, which means that translators’ activities are more likely to have been chronicled than those of interpreters; (2) social status and gender, as the individuals recruited as language brokers were usually enslaved women, members of sub-castes, prisoners of war, displaced individuals, or victims of circumstance, and (3) the fact that historians cannot be expected to include every single available detail in their accounts of important historical events, meaning that the participation of individuals in secondary roles, such as interpreters or language brokers, may go unrecorded (Delisle & Woodsworth, 2012; Roland, 1999)
Summary
Language brokering in conflict zones, has been pervasive throughout human history. Among the possible reasons for the invisibility of the interpreter in the historical record are: (1) the primacy of the written word over the spoken word, which means that translators’ activities are more likely to have been chronicled than those of interpreters; (2) social status and gender, as the individuals recruited as language brokers were usually enslaved women, members of sub-castes, prisoners of war, displaced individuals, or victims of circumstance, and (3) the fact that historians cannot be expected to include every single available detail in their accounts of important historical events, meaning that the participation of individuals in secondary roles, such as interpreters or language brokers, may go unrecorded (Delisle & Woodsworth, 2012; Roland, 1999) Even on those occasions when their presence is mentioned, interpreters working in conflict zones are rarely referred to by name or singled out for detailed description or comment. The seminal works on the history of interpreting by Baigorri (2015), Delisle and Woodsworth (2012), Takeda and Baigorri (2016) and Roland (1999) provide us with an explicit weft of the role played by interpreters in different settings throughout history
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