The interpretation for Libras in educational context:

reflection from experience in postgraduate studies

Abstract

This article aims to observe and discuss the importance of the interpreter of Libras ”“ Brazilian Sign Language ”“, with the goal of understanding the linguistic-discursive strategies that the educational interpreter (IE) of higher education uses in classrooms to mediate learning for deaf students. It is based on the socio-historical-cultural theory of Vygotsky ([1934] 2008, 2007), more specifically on the concepts of mediation and zone of proximal development. In perspective and the dialogic understanding of language, we rely on de Bakhtin ([1929] 2009). Concerning to methodological terms, we made our choice for a qualitative research. The article presents an introduction, in which the importance of the interpreter of Libras is justified; next it is organized in three parts: theoretical basis, which deals with the process of sense construction; methodology, which deals with the question of the construction of a set of practices which were used during the research; and main results of the data analysis, according to Santiago’s (2012) translation procedures. The results of this research point out that the interpreter of Libras, in the educational context, uses the Brazilian Sign Language in order to achieve linguistic-discursive strategies for the construction of meanings during the interpretive act in the classroom, which favors learning for deaf students.