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Interpreters
as Diplomats. A Diplomatic History of the Role of Interpreters
in World Politics. By Ruth A Roland. (Ottawa: University
of Ottawa Press, 1999) 208 pp. $28.00 paper.
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©
Anthony Pym 2001
Review written
for The European Legacy
This is a revised
edition of a little-known text called Translating World
Affairs, published in 1982. Jean Delisle, professor
at the University of Ottawa, has renamed the book (to focus
on interpreters), added a preface (which only talks about
interpreters), and has included the result in a series of
complementary texts like Translators through History
(1995) and Portraits de traducteurs (1999). The dated
study has thus become part of a commendable project designed
to rewrite history from the perspective of intermediaries.
Ruth Roland
writes as a student of diplomatic history. She brings together
innumerable anecdotes found in secondary sources, spanning
cultures east and west (though not African or south-Asian)
from the Bible to the 1970s, with the later decades recounted
from a strongly American perspective. The result is a fascinating
if fragmentary tale, devoid of any grand summarizing or
historical lesson apart from an astute lament that Americans
should learn more foreign languages. One reads, for example,
of the various colonial strategies for fabricating interpreters
by abducting natives; of occasions on which sly mistranslations
have been used to turn the tide of international affairs;
of traditions in China and Japan where the position of interpreter
was hereditary; of Matteo Ricci, who was permitted to stay
at the Chinese court in the sixteenth century because, apparently,
only he knew how to repair the clocks he had presented to
the emperor; of the Japanese interpreters who, during Captain
Perry’s visit in 1854, were required to perform their duties
on their knees; and of the unfortunately translated “Department
of Intercourse” responsible for translators in China in
the early twentieth century. Little of this is new, much
of it is open to nuance or debate. For instance, it is bluntly
claimed that in twelfth-century Toledo “a school for linguists
founded by Archbishop Raymondo (Foz 1998) attracted scholars
from all over Europe [...]. In 1250 this institution became
the first School of Oriental Studies in Europe, for the
purpose of training missionaries to the Muslims and the
Jews” (34). There is only scant historical justification
for the first part of this statement (the editor Delisle
has added the reference to Foz but has not corrected the
claim), and none at all for the second. Thus do the myths
live on. One similarly regrets that Delisle’s editing has
not updated the statistics on translation at the UN and
the European Commission, which are about 25 years old yet
are given in the present tense. There is also information
on “the European Parliament (Council of Europe)” that is
simply wrong.
The editor might
unkindly be accused of some sleight of hand in the new title
he has given this text. The author speaks clearly of “translators
and interpreters”, and emphasizes that the book is intended
as a “tribute to both” (8). Indeed, the point is made that
until well into the nineteenth century, most diplomatic
corps made no distinction between translators and interpreters
(36). Yet Delisle has chosen to name the book in honour
of interpreters only. One senses his desire to create a
new book out of a collection of old stories, and to slot
the result into his series. One might have hoped he would
do so a little more consistently, introducing rigour and
scholarship where, too often, this text offers entertainment
and doubt.
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- Last update
August 2001
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