ABSTRACT
According to the Brazilian census in 2010, 5.1% of the population has some kind of hearing impairment. However, only 0.08% of the students enrolled in 2016 in higher education are deaf, deaf-blind or hearing impaired. Brazilian Law 13409/2016 is an affirmative measure that aims to socially include the deaf population, especially in higher education reserving student positions for people with disabilities across public institutions of higher education. As a consequence, there is a growing demand for translators and sign language interpreters. Given the complexity of the functions established in the above-mentioned statute and the requirement of qualified professionals, studies on sign language translator and interpreter training in Brazil are justified. The purpose of this article is to present an exploratory study that aims to draw a comparison between translator and interpreter training in sign and oral languages. The study has a qualitative approach. Two courses are analyzed: one that provides training for oral language translators and interpreters at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain, and another that trains sign language translators and interpreters at the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil (UFG). The course components investigated are: training objectives, graduate profile, and the courses of the curricula on interpreter training and kind of training (focus on linguistic, operational, or theoretical competence). The results show that the course offered at the UFG has a more theoretical and conceptual focus compared to the course offered at the UAB, which, in turn, is much more hands-on and competence based.
Keywords:
interpreter training; interpreters; sign language
