Interpreting and its politics: Interpreters in the early Sino-British contacts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

“The historiography of interpreting is encumbered by some fundamental problems”, mainly because of the evanescent nature of the activity of interpreting. Due to the scarcity of historical records, it is often an arduous task for researchers to locate the marginal and sparse references to interpreters and their activity. In 1741, the Company, now operating out of Canton, employed James Flint as its Chinese interpreter, who was also the first such individual in British history to take on this role. The Flint Affair draws attention to few aspects of interpreting and translation that recur down the ages. The interpreter/translator is viewed with suspicion by the authorities in the country where they work, and may even forfeit their lives as a result of their translation activity. The commercial interpreters, the tongshi, were held in low esteem partly on account of their allegedly poor language skills and partly on account of their dubious ethics.