Professional and Cultural Mediation

The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:

• Oppression influences the group dynamics between majority-minority group members in predictable, identifiable ways.
• It is critical that interpreters understand the characteristics of oppressed and oppressor peoples and recognize any tendencies they may have to use their position of power to reinforce this status quo.
• Empowerment of individuals in Deaf-Deaf interactions and in Deaf-hearing interactions results in healthy and essential self-determination.  Interpreters can play a part in the empowerment of others in interpreted interactions.
• Language and culture cannot be separated.  A significant part of communication facilitation that an interpreter provides depends on cultural, as well as linguistic, mediation.
• “Professionalism” is a concept which grows from a cultural frame of reference.  Interpreters must know the meaning of “professionalism” from both a Deaf cultural frame and from a hearing cultural frame.  Further, interpreters must know how to balance that role in Deaf-hearing interactions.
• Professional practice requires critical thinking and the application of ethical principles in making decisions.  Further, practitioners must be able to clearly express their decision and the basis for their point of view in a variety of formats and settings.
• In order to be credible, professional practitioners, it is important for sign language interpreters to become certified.