Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Palgrave Handbook of Languages and Conflict pp 205–230Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Interpreters at War: Testing Boundaries of Neutrality

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore the distinctive attitudes and narratives of interpreters in conflict zones, whose role is no longer seen as a fixed notion as they adjust their positioning along a spectrum from invisibility to advocacy. In this context, we will explore the extent to which institutional and professional boundaries have been challenged, and the ethical and training-related issues which are currently being raised. Ultimately, improved skills for interpreters in crisis and war zones can be assumed to provide a spring board for these very same interpreters to function during post-war and post-crisis reconstruction, enabling countries to participate more fully in rebuilding their societies and economies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Kelly & Baker (2013) point out that interpreters do not occupy a clearly distinguished role within the armed forces. The term “interpreter” is used in the military to indicate a high level of language proficiency, whereas the term “military interpreter” could include all specialist language tasks, not necessarily only interpreting and/or language mediation.

  2. 2.

    See Part Two “Sources, documentation and voices”.

  3. 3.

    See accounts of interpreter-mediated interrogations at Guantánamo Bay in Inghilleri (2008). For further discussion on Inghilleri’s work on interpreter roles, see pars. 2.1 and 2.3. See also Part One, Chapter 3.

  4. 4.

    Studies by Baker (2010a, 2010b, 2012) on the British military in Banja Luka also address key questions about interpreter recruitment. For instance, she underlines the inadequate levels of understanding of recruitment processes among the British military.

  5. 5.

    The 51st TICO (Translator Interpreter Company) located in California is the first unit of the US Army whose mission is to prepare soldiers to provide “native heritage” translation, interpretation and cultural advice (online at http://www.army.mil/standto/archive/2009/05/28/; accessed on 20 January, 2018).

  6. 6.

    See also Anderson (2014: 8), who reports the testimony of Srosh, an Afghan interpreter who saved the life of a US Marine officer on patrol.

  7. 7.

    In the case of the United States, despite the huge number of visas offered by the government (approximately 9,000 visas for Afghans and 25,000 for Iraqis), very few interpreters obtained one. As of 31 March 2014, only 2,799 interpreters had been granted a visa (Anderson 2014). The applicant has to move through a 14-step process that requires a series of documents as well as information that are very hard to obtain. In this context, January 2018 saw a multi-party hearing take place at the European Parliament, aiming to take up the cause of locally employed interpreters abandoned by Western armies when they withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan.

  8. 8.

    Due to the legal complexity of the status of conflict zone interpreters, Moser-Mercer (2015: 306) stresses the need for a “more fine-grained categorization of interpreters working in conflict and post-conflict zones”.

  9. 9.

    See par. 1.3.

  10. 10.

    Persuasive accounts of these asymmetrical power relationships have been offered in terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social practice: the distribution of social, economic, and cultural capital within this setting, and the habitus of each participant as determined by their own capital. These studies (e.g. Inghilleri 2008, 2009, 2013) shed light on the tensions involved in the interpreter’s negotiation of institutional power and the uncertainties of their own positioning.

  11. 11.

    For example, Jacquemet (2005/2010) reports how interpreters working with personnel from the UN High Commission on Refugees on the border of Albania in 2000 routinely prevented applicants from telling their own stories.

  12. 12.

    See the InZone as well as other RedT, AIIC, Languages At War (see ‘Suggestions for further reading’), and FIT projects. Incidentally, there are organizations – e.g. ECOS (Translators and Interpreters for Solidarity) and Babels – whose activities are related to the preparation of new and specific codes of ethics for war interpreters (Tryuk 2015: 146).

  13. 13.

    The presence of a local interpreter may also influence the way parties interact in the field (Mancini-Griffoli & Picot 2004: 132).

  14. 14.

    Reports drafted by US army officers on training missions in Thailand, for instance, recommend that interpreters be made part of the “team” and even that they be provided with military uniforms (Kahane 2009).

  15. 15.

    For other perspectives in interpreting studies that foreground engagement, activism, and social responsibility, see Boéri (2008) and Drugan and Tipton (2017).

  16. 16.

    See Wallensteen (2007) for a description of three different forms of conflict: interstate, internal, and state-formation conflicts.

  17. 17.

    This setting shares some aspects of interpreting in asylum settings. Field interpreters working for UNHCR are often refugees themselves, so having to relive their own experience several times a day represents a particularly challenging dimension of their work (Inghilleri 2009).

References

  • AIIC. 2012. Conflict Zone Field Guide for Civilian Translators/Interpreters and Users of Their Services. Accessed January 23, 2018. http://www.fit-ift.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/T-I_Field_Guide_2012.pdf.

  • AIIC. 2013. Open Letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Accessed February 23, 2018. http://aiic.net/p/6562.

  • Allen, K. 2012. Interpreting in Conflict Zones. http://najit.org/blog/?p=229.

  • Amich, M.G. 2013. “The Vital Role of Conflict Interpreters.” Nawa Journal of Language and Communication 7 (2): 15–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. 2014. The Interpreters (Manuscript to an Original Documentary ‘The Afghan Interpreters’). London: Vice News. Accessed February 23, 2018. https://s3.amazonaws.com/vice_asset_uploader/files/1404757485The_Interpreters_Ebook_v6.pdf.

  • Apter, E.S. 2001. “Balkan Babel: Translation Zones, Military Zones.” Public Culture 13 (1): 65–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Askew, L., and M. Salama-Carr. 2011. “Interview: Interpreters in Conflict—The View from Within.” Translation Studies 4 (1): 103–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baigorri Jalón, J. 2011. “Wars, Languages and the Role(s) of Interpreters.” In Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Langues, Traduction, Interprétation, ed. H. Awaiss and J. Hardane, 173–204. Beirut: Sources-Cibles.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baigorri Jalón, J. 2014. From Paris to Nuremberg: The Birth of Conference Interpreting. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, C. 2010a. “It’s Not Their Job to Soldier: Distinguishing Civilian and Military in Soldiers’ and Interpreters’ Accounts of Peacekeeping in 1990s Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Journal of War and Culture Studies 3: 137–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, C. 2010b. “The Care and Feeding of Linguists: The Working Environment of Interpreters, Translators, and Linguists During Peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” War & Society 29 (2): 154–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, C. 2012. “When Bosnia was a Commonwealth Country: British Forces and their Interpreters in Republika Srpska 1995–2007.” History Workshop Journal 74 (1): 131–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. 2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London and New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. 2009. “Resisting State Terror: Theorizing Communities of Activist Translators and Interpreters.” In Globalisation, Political Violence and Translation, ed. Esperanza Bielsa and Christopher W. Hughes, 222–242. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. 2010. “Interpreters and Translators in the War Zone: Narrated and Narrators.” The Translator 16 (2): 197–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. 2013. Ethics in the Translation and Interpreting Curriculum. Surveying and Rethinking the Pedagogical Landscape: Report Commissioned by the Higher Education Academy. Accessed January 7, 2018. http://www.monabaker.org/?p=660.

  • Baker, M., and C. Maier 2011. “Ethics in Interpreter & Translator Training: Critical Perspectives. Introduction.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5 (1): 1–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartolini, G. 2010. General Principles of International Humanitarian Law. Accessed February 4, 2018. https://aiic.net/page/3396/.

  • Boéri, J. 2008. “A Narrative Account of the Babels vs. Naumann Controversy: Competing Perspectives on Activism in Conference Interpreting.” The Translator 14 (1): 21–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boéri, J., and C. Maier, eds. 2010. Compromiso Social y Traducción/Interpretación. Translation/Interpretation and Social Activism. Granada (Espagne): ECOS, traductores e intérpretes por la solidaridad.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bos, G., and J. Soeters 2006. “Interpreters at Work: Experiences from Dutch and Belgian Peace Operations.” International Peacekeeping 13 (2): 261–268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cappelli, P. 2014. “Wartime Interpreting: Exploring the Experiences of Interpreters and Translators.” In (Re)conciderando etica e ideologia en situaciones de conflict/(Re)visiting Ethics and Ideology in Situations of Conflict, ed. C. Valero Garcès, 15–24. Alcalà de Henares: Servicios de Publicaciones Universidad de Alcalà.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang, P. 2016. “Wartime Interpreting during the Sino-Dutch War (1661–1662).” In Linguistica Antverpiensia, ed. L. Ruiz Rosendo and C. Persaud. Special issue on Interpreters and Interpreting in Conflict Zones and Scenarios: A Historical Perspective, 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cokely, D. 2000. “Exploring Ethics: A Case for Revising the Code of Ethics.” Journal of Interpretation: 25–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dingman, R. 2009. Deciphering the Rising Sun: Navy and Marine Corps Codebreakers, Translators, and Interpreters in the Pacific War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dragović-Drouet, M. 2007. “The Practice of Translation and Interpreting during the Conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia (1991–1999).” In Translating and Interpreting Conflict, ed. M. Salama-Carr, 29–40. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drugan, J., and R. Tipton. 2017. Translation, Ethics and Social Responsibility. London: Taylor & Francis.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fahmy, M.F. 2004. Baghdad Bound: An Interpreter’s Chronicles of the Iraq War. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, H. 2016. “War and Culture Studies in 2016: Putting ‘Translation’ into the Transnational?” Journal of War & Culture Studies 9 (3): 209–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, H., and M. Kelly 2012. Languages and the Military: Alliances, Occupation and Peace Building. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Footitt, H., M. Kelly, C. Baker, and L. Askew, eds. 2012. Languages at War: Policies and Practices of Language Contacts in Conflict. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foust, J. 2009. Maladies of Interpreters. New York Times. Accessed February 12, 2018. www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/opinion/22foust.html?scp=1&sq=maladies%20of%20interpreters&st=cse.

  • Guo, T. 2015. “Interpreting for the Enemy: Chinese Interpreters in the Second Sino- Japanese War (1931–1945).” Translation Studies 8 (1): 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hale, S. 2007. Community Interpreting. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hari, D. 2008. The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur. London: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hedges, C. 2003. What Every Person Should Know about War. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M. 2005. “Mediating Zones of Uncertainty: Interpreter Agency, the Interpreting Habitus and Political Asylum Adjudication.” The Translator 11 (1): 69–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M. 2008. “The Ethical Task of the Translator in The Geo-political Arena: From Iraq to Guantánamo Bay.” Translation Studies 1 (2): 212–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M. 2009. “Translators in War Zones: Ethics under Fire in Iraq.” In Globalization, Political Violence and Translation, ed. E. Bielsa and C.W. Hughes. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M. 2010. “‘You Don’t Make War Without Knowing Why’ the Decision to Interpret in Iraq.” The Translator 16 (2): 175–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M. 2012. Interpreting Justice: Ethics, Politics and Language. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M. 2016. “Military Interpreting.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, ed. F. Pöchhacker. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inghilleri, M., and S-A. Harding. (ed.). 2010. “Introduction: Translating Violent Conflict.” The Translator (Special issue on Translation and Violent Conflict) 16 (2): 165–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, C. 2014. “Cross-cultural Competence Plus Language: Capturing the Essence of Intercultural Communication.” In Cross-cultural Competence for a Twenty-First-Century Military: Culture, the Flipside of COIN, ed. R. Greene Sans and A. Greene-Sans, 303–315. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • InZone. 2018. InZone Main Page. Accessed February 20, 2018. http://www.unige.ch/inzone/who-we-are/.

  • Jacquemet, M. 2005/2010. “The Registration Interview: Restricting Refugees’ Narrative Performance.” In Dislo- cations/Relocations: Narratives of Displacement, ed. Mike Baynham and Anna De Fina, 197–220. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Reprinted, with editorial apparatus, in Mona Baker (ed.) Critical Readings in Translation Studies, London and New York: Routledge, 133–151.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, I.P., and L. Askew 2014. Meeting the Language Challenges of NATO Operations: Policy, Practice and Professionalization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kahane, E. 2009. The AIIC Resolution on Interpreters in War and Conflict Zones. https://aiic.net/p/3196.

  • Kelly, M. 2012. “Conclusion: Communication, Identity and Representation through Languages in War.” In Languages and the Military, 236–243. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, M., and C. Baker (2013). Interpreting the Peace: Peace Operations, Conflict and Language in Bosnia-Herzegovina. London: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kermit, P. 2007. “Aristotelian Ethics and Modern Professional Interpreting.” In The Critical Link 4: Professionalisation of Interpreting in the Community—Selected papers from the Fourth International Conference on Interpreting in Legal, Health and Social Service Settings, Stockholm, Sweden, 20–23 May 2004. John Benjamins, 241–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mancini-Griffoli, D., and A. Picot. 2004. Humanitarian Negotiation: A Handbook for Securing Access, Assistance, and Protection for Civilians in Armed Conflict. Geneva: Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meehl, G.A. 2012. One Marine’s War: A Combat Interpreter’s Quest for Humanity in the Pacific. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moerman, E.R. 2008. Interpreters Under Fire. Accessed March 20, 2018. https://aiic.net/page/2977/interpreters-under-fire/lang/1.

  • Monacelli, C. 2002. “Interpreters for Peace.” In Interpreting in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities (Selected papers from the 1st Forli Conference on Interpreting Studies), ed. G. Garzone and M. Viezzi, 181–195. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Monacelli, C., and R. Punzo 2001. Ethics in the Fuzzy Domain of Interpreting: A ‘Military’ Perspective. The Translator 7 (2): 265–282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moreno Bello, Y. 2014. “The War Interpreter: Needs and Challenges of Interpreting in Conflict Zones.” In (Re)considerando ética e idelología en situaciones de conflicto: (Re)Visiting Ethics and Ideology in Situations of Conflict, ed. C. Valero-Garcés and B. Vitalaru. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá Publicaciones.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moser-Mercer, B. 2015. “Interpreting in Conflict Zones.” In The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, ed. H. Mikkelson and R. Jourdenais. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moser-Mercer, B. 2016. “Conflict Zones.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, ed. F. Pöchhacker. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moser-Mercer, B., L. Kherbiche, and B. Class 2014. “Interpreting Conflict: Training Challenges in Humanitarian Field Interpreting.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 6 (1): 140–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, J. 2007. “Interpreting and Translation for Western Media in Iraq.” Translating and Interpreting Conflict 28: 13–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pillen, A. 2016. “Language, Translation, Trauma.” Annual Review of Anthropology 45: 95–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pöchhacker, F. 2016. Introducing Interpreting Studies. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rafael, V.L. 2007. “Translation in Wartime.” Public Culture 19 (2): 239–246.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rafael, V.L. 2012. “Targeting Translation: Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language.” Social Text 113 30 (4): 55–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rok, C. 2014. “The Challenges of Professional Ethics in War and Crisis Interpreting.” In (Re)considerando ética e ideología en situaciones de conflicto/(Re)visiting Ethics and Ideology in Situations of Conflict, ed. C. Valero-Garcés, B. Vitalaru, and E. Mojica López. Universidad de Alcalá: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosendo, L., and M. Barea Munoz. 2017. “Towards a Typology of Interpreters in War-related Scenarios in the Middle East.” Translation Spaces 6 (2): 182–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz Rosendo, L., and C. Persaud, eds. 2016. Linguistica Antverpiensia. Special issue on Interpreters and Interpreting in Conflict Zones and Scenarios: A Historical Perspective, 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saar, E., and V. Novak 2005. Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier’s Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantánamo. New York: Associated Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salama-Carr, M., ed. 2007. Translating and Interpreting Conflict, vol. 28. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snellman, P. 2014. The Agency of Military Interpreters in Finnish Crisis Management Operations. Master’s thesis, University of Tampere. Accessed November 5, 2018. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201403061187.

  • Snellman, P. 2016. “Constraints on and Dimensions of Military Interpreter Neutrality.” In Linguistica Antverpiensia, Special issue on Interpreting in Conflict Situations and in Conflict Zones Throughout History 15: 260–281.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahuljak, Z. 1999. “The Violence of Neutrality-Translators in and of the War [Croatia, 1991–1992].” College Literature 26 (1), 34–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahuljak, Z. 2000. “Violent Distortions: Bearing Witness to the Task of Wartime Translators.” TTR: Traduction Terminologie Rédaction 13 (1): 37–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stahuljak, Z. 2010. “War, Translation, Transnationalism: Interpreters in and of the War (Croatia, 1991–1992).” In Critical Readings in Translation Studies, ed. M. Baker, 391–414. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Takeda, K. 2009. “War and Interpreters.” Across Languages and Cultures 10 (1): 49–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tipton, R. 2011. “Relationships of Learning between Military Personnel and Interpreters in Situations of Violent Conflict: Dual Pedagogies and Communities of Practice.” Special Issue of the Interpreter and Translator Trainer on Ethics and the Curriculum 5 (1): 15–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Todorova, M. 2016. “Interpreting Conflict Mediation in Kosovo and Macedonia.” In Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies, ed. L. Ruiz Rosendo and C. Persaud, vol. 15, 227–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torikai, Kumiko. 2009. Voices of the Invisible Presence: Diplomatic Interpreters in Post-World War II Japan. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tryuk, M. 2015. On Ethics and Interpreters. London: Peter Lang.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tryuk, M. 2016. “Interpreting and Translating in Nazi Concentration Camps during World War II.” In Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies, ed. L. Ruiz Rosendo and C. Persaud, vol. 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tymoczko, Maria. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vieira, A. 2014. “Complications in Cross-cultural Communications: Using Interpreters.” In Cross-cultural Competence for a Twenty-First-Century Military: Culture, the Flipside of COIN, ed. R. Green-Sans and A. Greene-Sans, 195–210. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wadensjö, C. 1998. Interpreting as Interaction. Longman: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallensteen, P. 2007. Understanding Conflict Resolution: War, Peace and the Global System. London: SAGE Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, K., and M.E. Staub. 2005. Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army. New York: WW Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Bologna—Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, Corso della Repubblica, Forlì, Italy

    Fabrizio Gallai

Authors
  1. Fabrizio Gallai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabrizio Gallai .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Michael Kelly

  2. University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Hilary Footitt

  3. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Myriam Salama-Carr

Suggestions for Further Readings

Suggestions for Further Readings

A Historical Perspective:

  • Footitt, H., M. Kelly, C. Baker, and L. Askew, eds. 2012. Languages at War: Policies and Practices of Language Contacts in Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan UK.

    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 Languages at War project by the University of Reading, University of Southampton, and the Imperial War Museum in London aimed to raise awareness on the use of languages at war, and the policies and practices that shape language contacts in conflict.

  • Salama-Carr, M., ed. 2007. Translating and Interpreting Conflict, vol. 28. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.

    This volume shows how conflict has long been central to discourse on interpreting, reflected in the institutional power relations present in interpreter-mediated encounters.

  • Ruiz Rosendo, L., and C. Persaud, eds. 2016. Interpreting in Conflict Situations and in Conflict Zones throughout History, vol. 15.

    This special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia on historical perspectives on interpreters in conflict zones shed light on the particular challenges faced by scholars grappling with the few references to interpreters in historical records.

Overview of the Field Today:

  • Anderson, B. 2014. The Interpreters. The Vice. https://s3.amazonaws.com/vice_asset_uploader/files/1404757485The_Interpreters_Ebook_v6.pdf.

    The interpreters who worked alongside American and NATO forces in Afghanistan played an essential role in sourcing intelligence and educating Western troops about the local culture. Now they are in danger of being abandoned. There is also an accompanying video called The Afghan Interpreters.

  • Baker, M. 2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. Routledge.

    This book demonstrates that translators and interpreters participate in circulating as well as resisting the narratives that create the intellectual and moral environment for violent conflict.

  • Inghilleri, M., and S.-A. Harding, eds. 2010. Translating Violent Conflict. Special issue of The Translator, vol. 16.

    The authors of this special issue of The Translator apply a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to a number of relevant issues across a range of conflict situations, drawing on fictional and non-fictional texts, legal and peacekeeping settings, and reports from war zones themselves.

  • Ruiz Rosendo, L., and M. Barea Munoz. 2017. “Towards a Typology of Interpreters in War-related Scenarios in the Middle East.” Translation Spaces 6 (2): 182–208.

    This paper aims to identify narratives that represent interpreters working in armed conflicts in the Middle East in order to examine the different existing categories.

Exploring Interpreter Roles, Power and Ethics:

  • Inghilleri, M. 2008. “The Ethical Task of the Translator in the Geo-political Arena: From Iraq to Guantánamo Bay.” Translation Studies 1 (2): 212–223.

  • Inghilleri, M. 2009. “Translators in War Zones: Ethics under Fire in Iraq.” In Globalization, Political Violence and Translation.

  • Inghilleri, M. 2012. Interpreting Justice: Ethics, Politics and Language. Routledge.

    These articles and book by Moira Inghilleri characterize the social and moral spaces in which the translation of the spoken word occurs in ways that reflect the realities of the transnationally constituted, locally and globally informed environments in which interpreters work alongside others.

  • Kelly, M., and C. Baker. 2013. “The Multiple Roles of Military Interpreters.” In Interpreting the Peace, 42–61. Springer.

    The authors show how military language specialists combine linguistic roles with military duties, which necessarily take precedence. Rather than being clothed in the unobtrusive black of the kurogo, they work in the uniform of their service, which places their linguistic role firmly in the context of a military profession.

  • Valero-Garcés, C., and B. Vitalaru, eds. 2014. (Re)considerando ética e idelología en situaciones de conflicto: (Re)Visiting Ethics and Ideology in Situations of Conflict. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá Publicaciones.

    This volume presents research on ethical issues arising from the performance of interpreters and translators in situations of armed conflict; descriptions of actions carried out by interpreters and translators who have intervened in the case of victims of war, sexual abuse or asylum and refuge requests; and debates on conflicts and ideological confrontations that arise in the field of translation and interpretation.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Gallai, F. (2019). Interpreters at War: Testing Boundaries of Neutrality. In: Kelly, M., Footitt, H., Salama-Carr, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Languages and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04825-9_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04825-9_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04824-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04825-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation