Reflections on interpreting settings and ethics in view of visual representations of la Malinche

Abstract

During the conquest of the territory of today's Mexico, a young indigenous woman, mostly known as la Malinche, emerged as the main interpreter, and later lover, to the Spanish Conquistador, Hernán Cortés. Numerous written references and pictorial representations attest to her linguistic, communication and diplomatic skills, and they also reveal a fascination with her private affairs. This article applies 21 st century conceptualisation and terminology to analyse the kind of interpreting she practised and to evaluate her professional performance from an ethics perspective. By examining both contemporary and subsequent illustrations that depict her in a professional or personal capacity, the study comes to a number of interesting conclusions. First, the kind of interpreting in which la Malinche could best be described as 'interpreting in conflict zones.' Second, the iconography of interpreting displays a series of recurring motifs. Third, there seems to be a distinction between the focus in contemporary and retrospective images along the lines of skills versus ethical guidelines. Finally, this idiosyncrasy could serve as a valuable lesson for today's interpreters.

First Nations interpreters cannot be neutral and should not be invisible

“…There have been, however, several attempts to distinguish the two concepts both in interpreting and translation studies, and in other academic and public spheres. From an interpreting perspective, Zimanyi (2009) examines the complexity of the potential roles played by interpreters ranging from neutral translators to cultural brokers to conciliators and advocates. Zimanyi argues that impartiality is in fact a continuum with an 'impartial interpreters' on one end and an 'involved interpreter' on the other, and that neutrality must be explored in relation to this continuum rather than as static and decontextualised expectation (see also Roy, 2000).…”

In the Limelight? Interpreters’ Visibility in Transborder Interpreting

“…The "pictorial turn", as it was coined by Mitchell (1992), brought about a reorientation towards visual analysis. A number of authors have adopted such approaches in interpreting studies, but there does not yet seem to exist an agreed analytical or methodological framework for conducting such visually oriented analyses (see for instance Fernández-Ocampo and Wolf 2014b;Zimányi 2015;Baigorri-Jalón 2016;Torresi 2017). ARTICLES review of the public service interpreting (PSI) literature, we hypothesize that interpreters are physically visible in many of the photographs and that the photographs will show instances of open agency and involvement.…”