War and interpreters

Kayoko Takeda

doi:10.1556/Acr.10.2009.1.3

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Across Languages and Cultures

Volume/Issue:: Volume 10: Issue 1

War and interpreters

Author:

Kayoko Takeda

Kayoko Takeda Monterey Institute of International Studies Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation 460 Pierce Street Monterey CA 93940 USA

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Pages:: 49–62

Online Publication Date:: 22 May 2009

Publication Date:: 01 Jun 2009

Article Category:: Journal Article

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1556/Acr.10.2009.1.3

Keywords:: military linguists; autonomous and heteronomous interpreters; Pacific War; Japanese American; Iraq War

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This paper attempts to shed light on issues of trust, control, ethics and identity concerning military interpreters who use their language skills against the country or people of their own cultural heritage. It examines linguists (translators and interpreters) who worked in military intelligence and operations during the Pacific War and the occupation of Japan, and military linguists involved in the current context of the “global war on terror”. Drawing on Cronin’s notion (2002, 2006) of heteronomous and autonomous interpreting systems, this paper discusses different sourcing avenues of military linguists during and after the Pacific War: Caucasian linguists trained at US military Japanese schools as autonomous, Japanese nationals locally hired for the occupation as heteronomous, and Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) linguists as in-between. Parallels and comparisons are drawn between the ambiguous standing of those Nisei linguists and the situations of foreign-born US military interpreters and locally hired civilian interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan. The complex and difficult challenges faced by military interpreters who utilize skills deeply rooted in their heritage against their own people or people of their cultural heritage should be visited in future discussion of government policies for recruiting, training and utilizing heritage language linguists in military settings.

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Across Languages and Cultures

Print ISSN:: 1585-1923

Online ISSN:: 1588-2519

Editor-in-Chief: Kinga KLAUDY (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)

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Andrew CHESTERMAN (University of Helsinki, Finland)
Kirsten MALMKJÆR (University of Leicester, UK)
Christiane NORD (University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa)
Anthony PYM (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain, University of Melbourne, Australia)
Mary SNELL-HORNBY (University of Vienna, Austria)
Sonja TIRKKONEN-CONDIT (University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland)

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Mona BAKER (Shanghai International Studies University, China, University of Oslo, Norway)
Łucja BIEL (University of Warsaw, Poland)
Gloria CORPAS PASTOR (University of Malaga, Spain; University of Wolverhampton, UK)
Rodica DIMITRIU (Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Iasi, Romania)
Birgitta Englund DIMITROVA (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Sylvia KALINA (Cologne Technical University, Germany)
Haidee KOTZE (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Sara LAVIOSA (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Italy)
Brian MOSSOP (York University, Toronto, Canada)
Orero PILAR (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain)
Gábor PRÓSZÉKY (Hungarian Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungary)
Alessandra RICCARDI (University of Trieste, Italy)
Edina ROBIN (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)
Myriam SALAMA-CARR (University of Manchester, UK)
Mohammad Saleh SANATIFAR (independent researcher, Iran)
Sanjun SUN (Beijing Foreign Studies University, China)
Anikó SOHÁR (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary)
Sonia VANDEPITTE (University of Gent, Belgium)
Albert VERMES (Eszterházy Károly University, Hungary)
Yifan ZHU (Shanghai Jiao Tong Univeristy, China)

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