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1 results

  • 4 - Languages at War: Military Interpreters in Antiquity and the Modern World

  • Edited by Aneta Pavlenko, University of York
  • Book:
    Multilingualism and History
    Published online:
    20 April 2023
    Print publication:
    27 April 2023, pp 90-106

  • Summary

    Recent scholarly interest in the figure of the interpreter has resulted in a wealth of studies of individual interpreting careers and interpretation practices in specific historical contexts.  But, while it is common for present-day knowledge and personal experience of interpreting to inform historical case studies, or for historical examples to receive passing mention in accounts of the contemporary situation, a truly critically informed diachronic perspective is so far lacking.  This chapter takes a comparative diachronic approach to the study of interpreting by comparing and contrasting the lives of military interpreters in diverse historic contexts. Rather than offering separate biographies, my aim is to show how structural factors affect the position and practices of interpreters across time and space.  I will also show how experience in working with fragmentary evidence from one period (e.g., documents from the ancient Mediterranean world) can be used to inform research on interpreting in other historic contexts (e.g., British Army records from the First World War).