Table Of ContentPALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGES AT WAR
Surviving in
Violent Conflicts
Chinese Interpreters in the Second
Sino-Japanese War 1931-1945
Ting Guo
Palgrave Studies in Languages at War
Series Editors
Hilary Footitt
University of Reading
Reading , United Kingdom
Michael Kelly
School of Humanities
University of Southampton , United Kingdom
Aim of the Series
Languages play a crucial role in war, confl ict and peacemaking: in
intelligence gathering and evaluation, pre-deployment preparations,
operations on the ground, regime-change, and supporting refugees and
displaced persons. In the politics of war, languages have a dual impact:
a public policy dimension, setting frameworks and expectations; and
the lived experience of those ‘on the ground’, working with and meeting
speakers of other languages.
Th is series intends to bring together books which deal with the role of
languages in situations of confl ict, including war, civil war, occupation,
peace-keeping, peace-enforcement and humanitarian action in war zones.
It will off er an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on applied linguistics,
sociolinguistics, translation studies, intercultural communication, his-
tory, politics, international relations and cultural studies. Books in the
series will explore specifi c confl ict situations across a range of times and
places, and specifi c language-related roles and activities, examining three
contexts: languages and the military, meeting the other in war and peace-
making, and interpreting/translating in war.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14615
Ting Guo
Surviving in Violent
Confl icts
Chinese Interpreters in the Second
Sino-Japanese War 1931–1945
Ting Guo
Department of Modern Languages
University of Exeter
Exeter , United Kingdom
Palgrave Studies in Languages at War
ISBN 978-1-137-46118-6 ISBN 978-1-137-46119-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-46119-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950061
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Acknowledgements
I would like to fi rst thank University of Exeter for granting me six
months study leave to complete this book. Aston University is also grate-
fully acknowledged for a three-year scholarship to work on the project
and travel grants for my two fi eld trips to China in 2007 and 2008. I am
especially grateful to the series editors, Hilary Footitt and Michael Kelly,
who have supported me throughout the writing of this book. Elizabeth
Forrest and Chloe Fitzsimmons at Palgrave Macmillan have also provided
me with a lot of advice and encouragement. I also want to thank my
husband, Jonathan Evans, for his careful reading of this book and look-
ing after our young daughter while I was writing this book. Th anks also
to Julia Calnan Angelica, who read the earlier form of some chapters and
gave me useful feedback.
I owe a great deal to a number of people who extended support and
help to me throughout this project: Christina Schäff ner, Edwin Gentzler,
Leo Tak-hung Chan, Miriam Shlesinger, Franz Pöchhacker and Andrew
Chesterman. I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to Kate Sturge, who
supervised the PhD that this book is based on. Without her support and
guidance, this book might well have never reached fruition. Her encour-
aging comments and insightful feedback have greatly helped me explore
new things and present this book to the best of my abilities.
Special gratitude is also extended to Yan Jiarui, who not only gen-
erously shared his experience as a trained military interpreter but also
v
vi Acknowledgements
provided me with invaluable sources of information for my research,
including a copy of his military interpreter training textbook.
S ome of the book has been published in slightly diff erent versions in
the following publications:
Chapter One is derived, in part, from an article, “(cid:16799)(cid:2833)(cid:13991)(cid:8093)(cid:2374)(cid:14391)(cid:16799)(cid:2833)
(cid:3625)(cid:16451) -(cid:6343)(cid:6240)(cid:7282)(cid:7503)(cid:3387)(cid:8769)(cid:7023)(cid:5324)(cid:4669)(cid:17661)(cid:1211)(cid:16799)(cid:2833)(cid:3020)(cid:3625)(cid:452)(cid:16451)(cid:14391)(cid:12753)(cid:10806)(cid:11444)(cid:1595)(cid:7800)(cid:11844)(cid:12454)”
(Professionalism in confl icts: China’s training of military interpreters dur-
ing the second Sino-Japanese War [1931–45]), published in T ranslation
Quarterly , 2012, no. 65, 31–60.
Chapter Four is derived, in part, from an article, “Interpreting for the
Enemy: Chinese Interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War [1931–45]”,
published in T ranslation Studies on February 11, 2014, available online at
h ttp://wwww.tandfonline.com/ [DOI: 1 0.1080/14781700.2014.881302 ].
I am grateful to the editors of these journals for permission to include
parts of these two earlier pieces, although both of them were rewritten
and expanded at the time this book was written.
Th is book is dedicated to my parents, Guo Zhaohe and Wu Kaigui.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Interpreters’ Role and Agency in Wars 4
1.2 Loyalty and Identity: Hanjian Interpreters in the War 8
1.3 Interpreter Training in Wars 11
1.4 A Bourdieusian Approach to Studies of Wartime
Interpreters 14
2 Responsibility and Accountability: Military Interpreters
and the Chinese Kuomintang Government 2 3
2.1 Interpreters and the Changing Field 24
2.1.1 Chinese/Japanese Interpreters 25
2.2 Th e KMT’s Military Interpreters during the War 28
2.2.1 Chinese/German Interpreters and Sino-German
Cooperation in the 1930s 28
2.2.2 Chinese/Russian Interpreters 36
2.2.3 Chinese/English Military Interpreters 39
2.3 A Case Study of University Students as Military
Interpreters 59
2.4 Conclusions 71
vii
viii Contents
3 Political Beliefs or Practical Gains?: Interpreting for the
Chinese Communist Party 7 3
3.1 Chinese/Russian Interpreters 76
3.1.1 Comintern Agents and the Students Returned
from Russia 76
3.1.2 A Speculative Stake: Training Chinese/Russian
Interpreters in the 1940s 89
3.2 An Unexpected Stake in the Field 94
3.2.1 Th e Visit of Western Journalists and the
US Dixie Mission 94
3.2.2 From Interpreters to Diplomats 96
3.3 Conclusions 100
4 Interpreting for the Enemy: Collaborating Interpreters
and the Japanese Forces 1 03
4.1 Hanjian: Collaborating Interpreters 105
4.2 Japanese Recruitment of Chinese Interpreters 108
4.2.1 Th e Japanese-Returned Interpreters 109
4.2.2 Locally Trained Interpreters: Forced Japanese
Language Education and Linguistic Habitus 117
4.3 Interpreter Embodiment 123
4.3.1 Fake Interpreters 125
4.3.2 Interpreters’ Border-crossing Strategies 131
4.4 Conclusions 136
5 A Case Study of Two Interpreters: Xia Wenyun and
Yan Jiarui 1 39
5.1 Xia Wenyun: Interpreter as a Double Agent 141
5.1.1 A Brief Biography of Xia Wenyun 141
5.1.2 Xia’s Social Capital and Stake in the Field 151
5.2 Yan Jiarui: A Trained KMT Military Interpreter 158
5.3 Conclusions 167
Contents ix
6 Conclusion 1 69
Appendix: Chronology of the Second Sino-Japanese
War (1931–45) 1 75
List of References 1 77
Index 195
