They stand between powerful nations and powerful people. They are there, even if they are rarely in the spotlight. The role of translators in diplomacy gets very little recognition even though their outstanding work can preserve the peace and mistakes can lead to war. What really counts when the chips are down.
Diplomacy begins the moment you are no longer alone in the room. Everything in life somehow involves diplomacy. You know this yourself: from arguments with your partner or from your efforts to knock sense into a stubborn teenager. To de-escalate a situation, you weigh every word carefully, skillfully navigating an emotional minefield as you practice the fine art of domestic diplomacy. After all, experience has taught us that a counterpart can very quickly start keeping a record of every careless word uttered in the heat of the moment. Can or must, want or may. Misunderstandings arise quickly and are often difficult to resolve.
What we experience in family diplomacy can have a much more dramatic effect at political level. The choice of words, for example, can play a decisive role in the outcome of peace negotiations and is often the sticking point in complex political agreements. Good relations between countries stand and fall with it. The fact that most parties to the talks at international level literally speak different languages does not exactly help to simplify delicate political communication.
Between ambiguity and culture
Even the best negotiators don't stand a chance if what they are saying is not presented correctly. When it comes to interpreting and drafting proposals for compromise, rejection, or agreement, translators must become diplomats themselves to a certain degree. Is this a deliberate provocation? Or might the perceived affront be unintentional? How do I rate the information? Words can be ambiguous, and cultural differences play a role. But where exactly is this invisible boundary between fatal ambiguity and cultural localization? Interpreters, in particular, often have to make decisions in fractions of a second.
And there are other challenges to overcome: confidentiality, for example, linguistic competence including dialects or regional peculiarities, decision-making ability, and, especially for interpreters, the ability to work under pressure.
Keeping your word
But let’s take a look at a linguistic stumbling block. When English texts make reference to “race” – which happens quite frequently, especially in the political arena – the precise yet rigid German translation “Rasse” (race) would probably be considered an insult to certain discussion partners whereas the word “Hautfarbe” (skin color) might be more appropriate. That’s because the German word “Rasse” – especially in German history – has grim connotations of colonialism and the National Socialists, who used the term to quasi-scientifically legitimize their inhuman policies. In the Anglo-Saxon world, on the other hand, “race” has now also become part of a critical debate on racism. It all depends on who says it and to whom. The word is the same, but how it is understood is different. This goes to show that words undergo a metamorphosis as they travel from sender to recipient. And yet they remain the same. Language certainly is a fascinating phenomenon.
It is a balancing act that translators in the field of diplomacy must perform all the time. During the translation process, many terms must first be mentally aligned with context, emotion, and history – not to mention the personal background of the other person. The scope for mistakes is large, but the room for maneuver is small.
In international politics, the effects can be particularly far-reaching: from the breakdown of important negotiations all the way to outright war or, at the very least, diplomatic disagreements.
Undiplomatic threats
One such example occurred during the heated atmosphere of the Cold War. In 1956, CPSU General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev spoke to representatives of the West at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow. Unfortunately, an amateur translator did a poor job of facilitating communication at the event. The Soviet statement “We will bury you” subsequently made the cover pages of international magazines and caused major diplomatic repercussions.
In reality, his statement probably came from a different background, and understanding it would have required a few semesters of political science. The Soviet politician is believed to have referenced an argument put forward by Karl Marx that the bourgeoisie is digging its own grave. However, the lack of context and the rather aggressive translation caused further tension between the East and West. The reference to a Marxist theory was somehow translated as a rhetorical declaration of war.
Incidentally, are you familiar with Sidney Pollack’s thriller “The Interpreter”? In the movie, Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broome, an interpreter at the United Nations in New York who accidentally witnesses a conspiracy. When Broome explains to one of her counterparts in the movie that she became an interpreter at the United Nations because she likes “peace and quiet,” and the latter responds that she is “only a translator,” Broome responds: “Countries have gone to war because they misunderstood each other.” Power and helplessness. When it comes to political translations, there is very little separating these two extremes.
