Race, Embodiment, and Professionalism: A Critical Intersectional Analysis of Brazilian Sign Language Interpreting

Authors

• Roberto César Reis da Costa, Universidade Federal da BahiaFollow
• Sheila Santos, Universidade do Estado da BahiaFollow

Abstract

This paper investigates the intersections of race, corporate professionalism, and somatic regulation within Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) translation and interpretation. While traditional translation scholarship prioritizes linguistic neutrality, this study employs an interdisciplinary critical methodology combining Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) to deconstruct how standard professional aesthetics inadvertently sustain systemic racism and Eurocentric cultural erasure. Utilizing a textual deconstruction of Article 5 of the National Libras Code of Ethics alongside an autoethnographic mapping of workplace visual ergonomics, we examine how racialized aesthetic expectations regulate and pathologize cultural markers such as braided hairstyles, Black power aesthetics, and turbans. Furthermore, we analyze technical workplace barriers through a TIS lens, including contrastive shirt mandates, stage lighting calibration, and professional turn-taking ergonomics. By interrogating these parameters, we expose the underlying institutional discourses and translational norms that pressure Black interpreters to alter their unalterable phenotypes to comply with a normalized, white somatic standard, ultimately arguing for an anti-racist reconfiguration of interpreter ethics and material practices.

Suggested Citation

Reis da Costa, Roberto César and Santos, Sheila (2026) "Race, Embodiment, and Professionalism: A Critical Intersectional Analysis of Brazilian Sign Language Interpreting," Journal of Interpretation: Vol. 34: Iss. 1, Article 8.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/joi/vol34/iss1/8