Interpreting for the enemy: Chinese interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945)

Abstract

This article explores interpreters' agency in wartime, with a focus on their active positioning and border-crossing strategy when facing violent conflicts. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of capital, it presents a case study of Xia Wenyun, who served as a Chinese interpreter and double agent between the Chinese Kuomintang government (KMT) and Japanese forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945), highlighting the interpreter's hybrid cultural background and accumulation of social and political capital via interpreting work. It argues that interpreters' agency is determined by the relative value of their capital (including their linguistic and cultural competences, interpreting and social skills) recognized by other agents and institutions. The relative value is subject to the structure(s) in which interpreters position themselves and relates to the interpreters' personal profiles. When facing extreme situations such as wartime, interpreters can actively use their accumulated capital to negotiate benefits beyond the interpreting situation and protect themselves.

Keywords:

• interpreter
• agency
• capital
• conflict
• power
• Second Sino-Japanese War

Note on contributor

Ting Guo is a lecturer on the MA Translation Programme at the University of Exeter. She has published articles on interpreters in wars, translation and activism, and translation and film adaptation in China. Her current research interests are translation history, translation and science, and translation in Chinese cinema. She is currently working on a book on Chinese interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945).

Notes

1. In the Chinese source, Su was referred to as a fanyiguan [translation officer], a general term used at that time by the public and the Chinese authorities to refer to both translators and interpreters affiliated with the government or armies. Given the fact that Su's main responsibility was interpreting between the Japanese and the local population, this paper employs the term “interpreter” in the translation.

2. All translations in this article are the author's unless otherwise specified.

3. There may be some dispute over the starting date of this war, given that the Chinese KMT government did not officially declare war with Japan until July 1937. This issue has been much discussed by Western and Chinese historians, many of whom (e.g. Williamsen 1998; Liu and Yang 2007; Zhao 2001) contend that the war began on 18 September 1931, when the Japanese forces provoked the Manchurian Incident in China. In light of this paper's focus on interpreters in occupied North China, it considers the war as encompassing everything from the 18 September 1931 incident to the Japanese surrender in the Chinese theatre in September 1945. http://www.apciinterpreters.org.uk/apci_interpreters_code_of_practice.aspx.

4. Xia's memoir was initially published in Japanese in 1967. It was later translated into Chinese by Zhao Xiaosong and Zhao Liantai and published in series in Heihexuekan in 1999 and 2000.

5. Li Tsung-jen and Tong Te-kong use the Wade-Giles romanization system in their work, so Xia's codename “He” is spelt “Ho” here.

6. Although 300,000 USD seemed a significant amount of money in the late 1930s, according to Xia (2000, 3: 93) the value of all his real estate at the end of the war (1945) was only 100,000 USD.