Abstract
This chapter introduces the collection and concentrates on the topics of cross-cultural communication, translation, and interpreting in the context of, and in relation to, war. It examines the growing field of research on the area of language and war, and argues that communicating and interpreting are centrally important activities in the context of war. A focus on the human dimension through selected case studies of interpreters allows readers to understand the challenge of understanding how people experience language(s) in the context of war and also seeks to shed light on the challenges that communication and language pose for military logistics and policy. Finally, this introduction provides an overview of the key themes and content of the collection.
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Notes
- 1.
Hilary Footitt (2016), ‘War and Culture Studies in 2016: Putting “Translation” in the Transnational?’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 9:3, pp. 209–21, here p. 218; Julian Walker (2017), Words and the First World War: Language, Memory, Vocabulary (London: Bloomsbury), p. 28.
- 2.
Hilary Footitt (2010), ‘Languages at War: Cultural Preparations for the Liberation of Western Europe’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 3:1, pp. 109–121, here p. 111.
- 3.
They include Christophe Declerq and Julian Walker (eds) (2016), Languages and the First World War: Representation and Memory (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan); Julian Walker and Christophe Declerq (eds) (2016), Languages and the First World War: Communicating in a Transnational War (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan); Hilary Footitt and Michael Kelly (eds) (2012), Languages and the Military: Alliances, Occupation and Peace Building (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan); and (2012) Languages at War: Policies and Practices of Language Contacts in Conflict (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan).
- 4.
Hilary Footitt and Simona Tobia (2013), WarTalk: Foreign Languages and the British War Effort in Europe, 1940–47 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 2.
- 5.
Footitt and Tobia, WarTalk: Foreign Languages and the British War Effort in Europe, 1940–47, p. 10.
- 6.
Mona Baker (2006), Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (London: Routledge), pp. 1–2.
- 7.
Mona Baker, Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, p. 2.
- 8.
Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann (2006), ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory, 45, pp. 30–50.
- 9.
Werner and Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, p. 37.
- 10.
Werner and Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, p. 47.
- 11.
James Marshall-Cornwall (1984), Wars and Rumours of Wars, A Memoir (London: Leo Cooper, Secker and Warburg), pp. 7–12.
- 12.
For more on the diverse cohort he became part of, see Jim Beach (2008), ‘“Intelligent Civilians in Uniform”: The British Expeditionary Force’s Intelligence Corps Officers, 1914–1918’, War & Society, 27:1, pp. 1–22.
- 13.
Marshall-Cornwall, Wars and Rumours of Wars, A Memoir, p. 65.
- 14.
Marshall-Cornwall, Wars and Rumours of Wars, A Memoir, pp. 74, 114.
- 15.
Marshall-Cornwall, Wars and Rumours of Wars, A Memoir, pp. 202–208.
- 16.
Max Egremont (1997), Under Two Flags: The Life of Major General Sir Edward Spears (London: Phoenix), p. 8.
- 17.
Egremont, Under Two Flags: The Life of Major General Sir Edward Spears.
- 18.
Raymond Toliver (1997), The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Scharff, Luftwaffe’s Master Interrogator (Altglen: Schiffer Publishing), pp. 102–09.
- 19.
Pär Anders Granhag, Steven M. Kleinman, and Simon Oleszkiewicz (2016), ‘The Scharff Technique: On How to Effectively Elicit Intelligence from Human Sources’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, 29:1, pp. 132–50.
- 20.
Lennart May and Pär Anders Granhag (2016), ‘Techniques for Eliciting Human Intelligence: Examining Possible Order Effects of the Scharff Tactics’, Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 23:2, pp. 275–87.
- 21.
Toliver, The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Scharff, Luftwaffe’s Master Interrogator, pp. 304–05.
- 22.
Arthur Page (2008), Between Victor and Vanquished: An Australian Interrogator in the War against Japan (Loftus: Australian Military History Publications), p. 32, 65–66.
- 23.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 1.
- 24.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 51.
- 25.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 87. For more on the operation of this centre see Colin Funch (2003), Linguists in Uniform: The Japanese Experience (Clayton: Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University), pp. 98–111.
- 26.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 167.
- 27.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, p. 409.
- 28.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, pp. 409–20.
- 29.
Page, Between Victor and Vanquished, pp. 423–35.
- 30.
Kayla Williams (2005), Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the US Army (New York: W. W. Norton), pp. 33–37.
- 31.
Williams, Love My Rifle More than You, p. 47.
- 32.
Williams, Love My Rifle More than You, pp. 246–52.
- 33.
Williams, Love My Rifle More than You, pp. 130–38.
- 34.
Williams, Love My Rifle More than You, pp. 114–21.
- 35.
Kevin Foster (2013), Don’t Mention the War: The Australian Defence Force, the Media and the Afghan Conflict (Clayton: Monash University Publishing), p. xvii.
- 36.
Official histories of peacekeeping have been written, but there are few other accounts. See the six volume Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations published by Cambridge University Press. The official history of Australia’s war in Afghanistan is currently being written.
- 37.
Kevin Foster (ed.) (2011), The Information Battlefield: Representing Australians at War (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing); Kevin Foster (ed) (2009), What Are We Doing in Afghanistan? The Military and the Media at War (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing); Foster, Don’t Mention the War.
- 38.
Richard Jackson (2005), Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-terrorism (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 1. Another study of the public language around the war on terror is John Dower (2010), Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9–11/Iraq (New York: W. W. Norton), which looks at how historical discourses and tropes were mobilised after 9/11.
- 39.
Footitt and Tobia, WarTalk: Foreign Languages and the British War Effort in Europe, 1940–47, p. 5.
- 40.
Rachel Woodward and K. Neil Jenkings (2012), ‘“This Place Isn’t Worth the Left Boot of One of Our Boys”: Geopolitics, Militarism and Memoirs of the Afghanistan War’, Political Geography, 31:8, pp. 495–508.
- 41.
For example, see Frances Houghton (2019), The Veterans’ Tale: British Military Memoirs of the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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Laugesen, A., Gehrmann, R. (2020). Introduction: Understanding Communication, Interpreting, and Language in Wartime. In: Laugesen, A., Gehrmann, R. (eds) Communication, Interpreting and Language in Wartime. Palgrave Studies in Languages at War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27037-7_1
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