Abstract
Western forces went into the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan unprepared for the linguistic and cultural challenges they brought. Only the recruitment of thousands of untrained local civilians to aid communication on the ground saved the day. Since conflict is a constant in human history, it is predictable that it will reoccur and strategic planning for similar interventions in the future must take place. Without offering solutions to the problem, this chapter provides a practitioner’s insight into the creation and development of interpreting and translation professions, their codes of ethics, and best practice. A study of these may help to determine whether and how they can instruct the development of similar guidelines and policy for the work and protection of civilian interpreters serving the military.
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Notes
- 1.
Official Journal of the European Union. “Directive 2010/64/EU”. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010L0064&from=EN. Accessed June 15, 2017.
- 2.
A number of articles appeared in the press about this, for example, in The Guardian, May 4, 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/may/04/thousands-of-court-cases-adjourned-due-to-failures-in-interpreting-services. Accessed June 2017.
- 3.
https://translatorswithoutborders.org/. Accessed June 23, 2017.
- 4.
There is no reason why conferences on social questions should not be interpreted with the same accuracy as in other areas, and indeed their success in reforming society depends on it. Although it may be considered to be biased, an insight into the problems of this kind of activism may be obtained by reading Peter Naumann. “Babels and Nomad: Observations on the Barbarising of Communication at the 2005 W”. aiic.net, May 27, 2005. Accessed June 20, 2017. http://aiic.net/p/1800. The comments are also visible.
- 5.
The InZone Project was described by its initiator, Barbara Moser Mercer, in an article on the AIIC website in 2008: https://aiic.net/page/2979/interpreting-in-zones-of-crisis-and-war/lang/1. Accessed June 15, 2017. The project has moved on since then, and the latest information can be found here: http://www.unige.ch/inzone/who-we-are/. Accessed June 19, 2017.
- 6.
Critical Link International is an association committed to the advancement of community interpreting in the social, legal, and health-care sectors. They are a core member of the international coalition to help interpreters in conflict zones.
- 7.
A project headed by Maria Aguilar Solano (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain), R. Lazaro (University of Alcalà, Spain) with Heidi Salaets (Belgium), Bernd Meyer (Germany), Michal Schuster (Israel), Robert Pollard (USA), Yvonne Fowler (UK), and Katherine Allen (USA).
- 8.
The three were AIIC, FIT (The International Federation of Translators, known by its French acronym), and Red T (a non-profit organisation dedicated to the protection of translators and interpreters in conflict zones and other adversarial settings).
- 9.
Copies of the Guide in a selection of languages can be downloaded from the aiic site below an article entitled “AIIC, Red T and FIT introduce the first conflict zone field guide” http://aiic.net/p/3853. Accessed June 15, 2017. They can also be found on the Red T site.
- 10.
University of Reading. Languages at War Project. https://www.reading.ac.uk/languages-at-war/. Accessed June 15, 2017.
- 11.
La Malinche. An article about her can be found in the Christine Adams series (ref. later).
- 12.
The easiest access to these is via Red T Open letter project. http://red-t.org/openletters.html. Accessed June 15, 2017.
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Fitchett, L. (2019). Interpreting in Peace and Conflict: Origins, Developing Practices, and Ethics. 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_9
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