A Study on the “Interpretation Government”: Scapegoating interpreters for Social Disorder during the Post-Colonial Era

A Study on the “Interpretation Government”: Scapegoating interpreters for Social Disorder during the Post-Colonial Era

This study explores the portrayal of interpreters as represented in the novels on one hand and in the documents on the other during the US military government after Korea’s liberation from Japan. Interpreting discussed in this paper is never a matter of language, but a political, power-related activity. The interpreters who were expected to serve as the medium of communication between the US military government and Korean people were criticised as profiteers and a great social evil. The paper argues that the resentment and frustration among people were not directed towards the US nor Korean intellectuals, but instead were directed at the interpreters. The interpreters became more acceptable targets than people with power because they were viewed by general people as unlikely to fight back. The new reality fraught with problems frustrated people and they needed a scapegoat, thus attributing the problems disproportionately to the interpreters.