The I-for-myself of Experienced Sign Language Interpreters in Training

Abstract

This article presents a section of a doctoral research that discusses Brazilian sign language (Libras) and Portuguese language (PL) interpreter training. The research was carried out in a specialization (lato sensu) graduate course in translation and the interpretation of Libras/PL at a private institution of higher education in the city of São Paulo. The participants of the research were interpreters with a minimum of three years of experience. In a class designed to improve Libras-PL interpretation skills, six subjects, in pairs, interpreted videos and were later shown their interpretive performance through self-confrontation sessions. This article presents how the position of the subjects, confronting the “other of themselves” through the simple self-confrontation, relies on the constitutive otherness of the professional activity and the need for a constant process of facing oneself as other in order to improve professional practice.