Opening up sign language interpreting education for deaf students challenges both the interpreter education and the teachers. We find that educating deaf and hearing students together catalyzed social changes the education and in the interpreter trainers’ professional identity.
The education of sign language interpreters has a brief history in higher education. Nevertheless, both deaf and hearing signed language users have a long tradition of facilitating communication between signers and non-signers. Interpreter education at some educational institutions in Europe is now open to deaf students. In our study, we have explored both trainers and deaf sign language interpreter students’ experiences from joint sign language interpreting programmes for deaf and hearing students in Finland. We find that opening admissions for deaf interpreting students challenges both the education and the students. In this presentations we will focus on the trainers’ experiences. The interpreter trainers we interviewed were all hearing, but presented themselves as allays of the deaf society. The recognition of the deaf students language and culture resulted in changes manifested in the curriculum. Furthermore, we find that the deaf students bringing in their cultural perspectives, their knowledge and believes, have led to social change in the trainers way of teaching as well as the professional identity both for the deaf interpreters and the educators. A profession will always be challenged by internal and external factors. In our case the market and technological innovations are the two most prominent external factors in our informants’ narratives. We find that antagonistic discourses are fighting to define the identity of the interpreting trainer as well as the deaf interpreter. We suggest further research will be needed to understand the future course of the education and profession of SL interpreters.
