{"title":"“Who are you standing with?”: cultural (self-re)translation of a Russian-speaking conference immigrant-interpreter in Israel during the war in Ukraine","authors":"Tanya Voinova","doi":"10.1515/multi-2023-0054","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The war in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has led to a significant civilian involvement in Israel, particularly among immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who began to provide humanitarian assistance, including interpreting. Highlighting the interrelation between translation and migration, I argue that the war strongly affects multiple hybrid identities of immigrant-interpreters who along with interlingual translation engage also in processes of cultural (self-re)translation. Scholarly attention for such experiences has been relatively limited, since most research on interpreting in war and conflict has prioritized interpreter experiences within war struck regions. Little attention has also been devoted to the work of (conference) interpreters who are themselves immigrants. In this autoethnographic study therefore, I present my own experience during the war as both an immigrant from Russia and a conference interpreter who works with Russian and Hebrew. I discuss several aspects pertinent to the immigrant-interpreter experience within and beyond the interpreting practice: being part of a collective of immigrants, involved in humanitarian assistance; negotiating the devaluation of Russian(ness); facing challenges to the (in)visibility, implied in the interpreter’s role; and moving in-between the origin and the host countries.","PeriodicalId":46413,"journal":{"name":"Multilingua-Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Multilingua-Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2023-0054","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract The war in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has led to a significant civilian involvement in Israel, particularly among immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who began to provide humanitarian assistance, including interpreting. Highlighting the interrelation between translation and migration, I argue that the war strongly affects multiple hybrid identities of immigrant-interpreters who along with interlingual translation engage also in processes of cultural (self-re)translation. Scholarly attention for such experiences has been relatively limited, since most research on interpreting in war and conflict has prioritized interpreter experiences within war struck regions. Little attention has also been devoted to the work of (conference) interpreters who are themselves immigrants. In this autoethnographic study therefore, I present my own experience during the war as both an immigrant from Russia and a conference interpreter who works with Russian and Hebrew. I discuss several aspects pertinent to the immigrant-interpreter experience within and beyond the interpreting practice: being part of a collective of immigrants, involved in humanitarian assistance; negotiating the devaluation of Russian(ness); facing challenges to the (in)visibility, implied in the interpreter’s role; and moving in-between the origin and the host countries.
期刊介绍:
Multilingua is a refereed academic journal publishing six issues per volume. It has established itself as an international forum for interdisciplinary research on linguistic diversity in social life. The journal is particularly interested in publishing high-quality empirical yet theoretically-grounded research from hitherto neglected sociolinguistic contexts worldwide. Topics: -Bi- and multilingualism -Language education, learning, and policy -Inter- and cross-cultural communication -Translation and interpreting in social contexts -Critical sociolinguistic studies of language and communication in globalization, transnationalism, migration, and mobility across time and space