“And then the Germans came to town”: The lived experiences of an interpreter in Finland during the Second World War
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52034/lanstts.v15i.406Keywords:
interpreting, World War II, Finland, autobiography, memory, framing, narrativesAbstract
During World War II, both the Finnish Army and its ally Germany were dependent on mediation practices provided by military personnel or civilians in the linguistic, cultural and ideological intersections of the given conflicts. By drawing on two autobiographical manuscripts – one written immediately after the war and the other later in the 1990s – this article examines the experiences of a female civilian interpreter engaged by the German Army from 1942 to 1945. In addition to directing attention to ordinary people in wartime translational tasks, this article contrasts the value of such post-hoc accounts in the historical translation analysis against the constraints imposed on them through their embeddedness in a certain communicative situation. It shows, furthermore, how the change in this communicative situation imposes changes on the writer’s emotional involvement and how this change mirrors her own stance towards the given narrative framework.References
Andres, D. (2001). Dolmetscher-Memoiristen: Zwischen alter ego und ego. In T. Lindner (Ed.), Moderne Sprachen (pp. 23–37). Wien: Edition Praesens.
Andres, D. (2012). Erwin Weit: Gratwanderung eines Dolmetschers. In A. F. Kelletat & A. Meger (Eds.), Worte und Wendungen: Texte für Erika Worbs mit Dank für zwei Jahrzehnte Germersheim (pp. 11–19). Berlin: Saxa.
Andringa, E. (1996). Effects of ‘narrative distance’ on readers’ emotional involvement and response. Poetics, 23, 431–452.
Andringa, E. (2011). Poetics of emotion in times of agony: Letters from exile, 1933–1940. Poetics Today, 32(1), 129–169.
Baker, M. (2006). Translation and conflict: A narrative account. London: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1974/1986). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. With a new foreword by Bennett Berger. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
Iggers, G. G. (2005). Historiography in the twentieth century: From scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge (2nd ed.). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan.
Ikonen, L. (1991). The Diary. Unpublished autobiographic manuscript.
Ikonen, L. (n.d.). Matkamuistelma 3/9/44–3/9/1945. Unpublished autobiographic manuscript.
Junila, M. (2000). Kotirintaman aseveljeyttä: Suomalaisen siviiliväestön ja saksalaisen sotaväen rinnakkaiselo Pohjois-Suomessa 1941–1944. Helsinki: SKS.
Keen, S. (2011). Introduction: Narrative and the emotions. Poetics Today, 32(1), 1–53.
Koskinen, K. (2012). Domestication, foreignization and the modulation of affect. In H. Kemppanen, M. Jänis, & A. Belikova (Eds.), Domestication and foreignization in translation studies (pp. 13–32). Berlin: Frank & Timme.
Kujamäki, P. (2012). Mediating for the Third Reich: On military translation cultures in World War II in Northern Finland. In H. Footitt & M. Kelly (Eds.), Languages and the military: Alliances, occupation and peace building (pp. 86–99). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Leskinen, J., & Juutilainen, A. (2005). Jatkosodan pikkujättiläinen. Helsinki: WSOY.
Munday, J. (2014). Using primary sources to produce a microhistory of translation and translators: Theoretical and methodological concerns. The Translator, 20(1), 64–80.
Somers, M. (1992). Narrativity, narrative identity, and social action: Rethinking English working-class formation. Social Science History, 16(4), 591–630.
Somers, M., & Gibson, G. (1994). Reclaiming the epistemological “other”: Narrative and the social constitution of identity. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Social theory and the politics of identity (pp. 37–99). Oxford: Blackwell.
Wolf, M. (2012). Die vielsprachige Seele Kakaniens: Übersetzung und Dolmetschen in der Habsburgermonarchie 1848 bis 1918. Vienna: Böhlau.
Wolf, M. (2015). The Habsburg monarchy’s many-languaged soul: Translating and interpreting, 1848–1918. (Translated by Kate Sturge.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 Deed that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. The material cannot be used for commercial purposes.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).