Abstract
While wartime interpreting has become a research focus in very recent years, little research has explored on-the-battleground interpreting for warring sides in pre-modern times. By examining the Dutch East India Company (VOC) archival resources and other relevant historical documents, this study discusses interpreting practices during the Sino-Dutch War (1661–1662) in seventeenth-century colonial Taiwan, with a focus on interpreters’ backgrounds, functions and status, issues of loyalty and trust, and interpreters and translation as a tool of manipulation and power struggles. The overview of the interpreters and the interpreting practices in pre-modern wartime viewed against our present experience shows both differences and similarities in wartime interpreting between the past and the present; it also indicates that although the importance of interpreters has been increasingly recognized, they have remained a symbol of both relief and distrust since ancient times.
Highlights
IntroductionWartime interpreting has become one focus of attention in translation studies in recent years (e.g., Baker, 2010; Dragovic-Drouet, 2007; Inghilleri, 2009; Palmer, 2007; Rafael, 2010; Stahuljak, 2010a, 2010b) largely because of the occurrence of some large-scale, protracted international or inter-ethnic conflicts in modern times and the availability of adequate and varied types of data, such as media reports, war archives in written and/or audiovisual form, interviews with the parties concerned and memoirs or books
Even nowadays with the advancement of technologies and the elevated status or visibility of interpreters, only very few previous studies provide direct observation or experience of wartime interpreting practice, and they mainly concern interpreting for the media or in asylum, court and refugee contexts (Dragovic-Drouet, 2007; Jacquemet, 2010; Stahuljak, 2010a)
To compensate for the scarcity of wartime interpreting data in pre-modern times and the dearth of research into on-thebattleground interpreting practice for warring sides, this present study investigates the interpreting practice during the Sino-Dutch War in seventeenth-century colonial Taiwan
Summary
Wartime interpreting has become one focus of attention in translation studies in recent years (e.g., Baker, 2010; Dragovic-Drouet, 2007; Inghilleri, 2009; Palmer, 2007; Rafael, 2010; Stahuljak, 2010a, 2010b) largely because of the occurrence of some large-scale, protracted international or inter-ethnic conflicts in modern times and the availability of adequate and varied types of data, such as media reports, war archives in written and/or audiovisual form, interviews with the parties concerned and memoirs or books. To compensate for the scarcity of wartime interpreting data in pre-modern times and the dearth of research into on-thebattleground interpreting practice for warring sides, this present study investigates the interpreting practice during the Sino-Dutch War in seventeenth-century colonial Taiwan. This protracted multi-ethnic war between Europeans and Chinese, which broke out on 30 April 1661 and ended in February of 1662, involved fierce battles and many interpreter-mediated negotiations through letters and meetings, most of which were carefully documented in the archives of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC). Note that the wartime interpreting practices discussed in this study are limited to those taking place on the battlefield in and around the two aforementioned Dutch fortresses
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