Brazilian Sign Language/ Portuguese Translator and Interpreter Education: vision of professionals working in the labor market

Abstract

The training of translators and interpreters of Brazilian sign language (Libras) and Portuguese language (TILSP) is a recent practice and is under increasing discussion in Brazil. In this context, the performance of the labor market of these professionals increased considerably, due to achievements of the deaf community, which began to occupy social spaces in an accessible way in Libras, which previously did not happen. With this, the training of these professionals should also improve and evolve in order to fill as many gaps as possible. That said, this study aims to analyze the vision of professional translators and interpreters of Libras-Portuguese from Federal University of Goias (UFG) about their training process in the area. The research uses the methodology of exploratory research (Gil, 2008), with a quanti-qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews. The data analysis took place according to Bardin's (2007) structure, presenting six nuclei of meaning: practice; theory; how these professionals were formed; awareness of the need for training; continuing education and difficulties inherent to the profession, which were grouped into two categories: perspectives of the profession and professionalization. The results showed that, in the view of the professionals, the training currently proposed, at a higher level, presents a lack of practical content, having greater focus on theoretical disciplines, where the ideal would be a training with balance between practice and theory, and not prioritizing only one of the languages, since the profession involves a linguistic pair, in this case, Libras and Portuguese.