This paper attempts to shed light on issues of trust, control, ethics and identity concerning military interpreters who use their language skills against the country or people of their own cultural heritage. It examines linguists (translators and interpreters) who worked in military intelligence and operations during the Pacific War and the occupation of Japan, and military linguists involved in the current context of the “global war on terror”. Drawing on Cronin’s notion (2002, 2006) of heteronomous and autonomous interpreting systems, this paper discusses different sourcing avenues of military linguists during and after the Pacific War: Caucasian linguists trained at US military Japanese schools as autonomous, Japanese nationals locally hired for the occupation as heteronomous, and Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) linguists as in-between. Parallels and comparisons are drawn between the ambiguous standing of those Nisei linguists and the situations of foreign-born US military interpreters and locally hired civilian interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan. The complex and difficult challenges faced by military interpreters who utilize skills deeply rooted in their heritage against their own people or people of their cultural heritage should be visited in future discussion of government policies for recruiting, training and utilizing heritage language linguists in military settings.

This paper gives an overview of the interpreting arrangements at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946)(1947)(1948), focusing on some sociopolitical aspects of the interpreting phenomena, and discusses the behavior of the interpreters and monitors during the testimony of Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime Prime Minister. It provides a contextualized examination of court interpreting rather than a microlinguistic analysis of interpreted texts. The study demonstrates how political and social aspects of the trial and wartime world affairs affected the interpreting arrangements, especially the hierarchical set-up in which three ethnically and socially different groups of "linguists" (language specialists) performed three different functions in the interpreting process. An examination of the linguists' behavior during Tojo's testimony points to a link between their relative positions in the power constellation of the trial and their choices, strategies and behavior in interpreting and monitoring. These findings reinforce the view that interpreting is a social practice conditioned by the social, political and cultural contexts of the setting in which interpreters operate.

Recently, the practice of active learning has spread, increasingly recognized as an essential component of academic studies. Classes incorporating small group discussion (SGD) are conducted at many universities. At present, assessments of the eŠectiveness of SGD have mostly involved evaluation by questionnaires conducted by teachers, by peer assessment, and by self-evaluation of students. However, qualitative data, such as open-ended descriptions by students, have not been widely evaluated. As a result, we have been unable to analyze the processes and methods involved in how students acquire knowledge in SGD. In recent years, due to advances in information and communication technology (ICT), text mining has enabled the analysis of qualitative data. We therefore investigated whether the introduction of a learning system comprising the jigsaw method and problem-based learning (PBL) would improve student attitudes toward learning; we did this by text mining analysis of the content of student reports. We found that by applying the jigsaw method before PBL, we were able to improve student attitudes toward learning and increase the depth of their understanding of the area of study as a result of working with others. The use of text mining to analyze qualitative data also allowed us to understand the processes and methods by which students acquired knowledge in SGD and also changes in students' understanding and performance based on improvements to the class. Thisˆnding suggests that the use of text mining to analyze qualitative data could enable teachers to evaluate the eŠectiveness of various methods employed to improve learning.

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The trustworthiness of translators and interpreters has long been an issue in the profession. In some cases, a set of procedures are established to ensure the trust of clients and end-users. In the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946-1948), such procedures took on remarkable form. During the trial, three ethnically and socially different groups of language personnel engaged in three different functions within the overall interpreting process: Japanese nationals as interpreters, Japanese Americans as monitors, and U.S. military officers as language arbiters who ruled on the disputed interpretations. Sociopolitical aspects such as trust, power and control are evident in this hierarchical structure. In such political settings, and in others seen today, the trustworthiness of the interpreter may override the quality of interpreting.La question de la confiance à accorder aux traducteurs et aux interprètes est débattue depuis longtemps dans la profession. Dans certains cas, un ensemble de procédures sont établies afin de susciter la confiance des clients et des utilisateurs. Au sein du Tribunal militaire pour l’Extrême-Orient (1946-1948), ces procédures ont pris une forme particulière. Pendant le procès, trois groupes différents sur les plans social et ethnique assumaient trois fonctions différentes dans le cadre du processus global d’interprétation : les Japonais interprétaient, les Américains d’origine japonaise contrôlaient, et les officiers militaires américains jouaient le rôle d’« arbitres » linguistiques qui tranchaient en cas de controverse. Les aspects sociopolitiques tels que la confiance, le pouvoir et le contrôle sont évidents dans cette structure hiérarchique. Dans de tels environnements politiques ainsi que dans d’autres que nous connaissons aujourd’hui, le besoin de faire confiance à l’interprète peut prendre le pas sur la qualité de l’interprétation