Civilian Interpreting in Military Conflicts

Abstract

Between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the conflict in Yugoslavia, civilian interpreting had become formalized as a profession. The technique of simultaneous interpretation through booths that had arisen during the Allied war crimes tribunals in Germany (Chapter 9) became a dominant image of the interpreting profession after its adoption by the United Nations. An international association for conference interpreters, AIIC (Association internationale des interprètes de conférence), was founded in 1953 and laid down standards for working conditions and hours as well as committing interpreters to a code of professional ethics. The language needs of Cold War militaries, meanwhile, had developed in a more functional way. Linguists’ most overt military roles were in the Military Liaison Missions in Germany, in the arms control inspections that accompanied détente and as defence attachés in important embassies. Under greater secrecy, military intelligence services depended on linguists to make sense of intercepted communications and trained linguist/interrogators in anticipation of a conventional war with the forces of the opposing bloc. Although military linguists derived a strong sense of professionalism from their subjectivity as members of the armed forces, their role had evolved in the perennial trade-off between training times, costs and requirements rather than being conceived and re-conceived in step with the professionalized linguist in the civilian world. The professional model of language intermediaries’ careers and activities remained largely irrelevant to military language support even in the 1990s, 50 years after the formalization of professional civilian interpreting.

‘None of us at the time was a professional interpreter. Very few people actually had a degree in English Language. No. Never. We kind of learned along the way.’¹