Atuação do intérprete de libras na mediação da aprendizagem de aluno surdo no ensino superior: reflexões sobre o processo de interpretação educacional

Abstract

The object of this research is to observe, discuss and understand the discursive strategies which the educational interpreter (EI) uses in higher education to mediate the hear impaired pupil learning with respect to meaning building, understanding and acquisition of those meanings, once that these students learning is built upon the interpreter s mediation. To reach the aims proposed the research questions that guide the work are: (i) How is the interpreter s meaning building developed in the process of pedagogic mediation and (ii) How are the situations of mediation characterized so that the scientific concepts are understood by the hearing impaired pupil? The research is based on Vygotsky s socio-historic-cultural theory (1934/2008); (1934/2007), more specifically on the concepts of mediation, zone of proximal development and the verbal-visual perspective in Bakhtin s dialogic understanding of language (1975/2009); (1975/1997) and Brait (2013). We introduce the 10.436/2002 Law, which establishes the Brazilian sign language (Libras) as the official hearing impaired language in Brazil, regulated by the 5.626/05 Decree, and the 10.098/00 Law, which treats the question of the impaired people accessibility to public and private spaces, establishing rules and criteria in the advancement of accessibility, ensuring the interpreter presence in the educational system to translate from Portuguese to Libras and vice-versa. These political movements allowed the hearing-impaired to access higher education more frequently. This professional s work demands theoretical and practical articulations for the hearing impaired educational accessibility to happen. Methodologically, the ethnographic qualitative research was chosen because it leads the researcher-interpreter to build new perspectives about his or her work. To produce data, five lessons on Java Application Development - SOA from a MBA Post-graduation course were recorded audio-visually during a semester. The research results show that the Libras interpreter s mediation was essential to make in class communication between the hearing impaired and the listener possible. Besides, the interpreter uses sign language to create linguistic-discursive strategies to build meaning during the interpretative act, this way helping the hearing impaired learning process