While in some federal provinces of Austria, such as Vienna, sign language interpreters work in primary, secondary and tertiary education on a regular basis, Styrian professionals describe this as the exception. Instead, communication assistants who know sign language support hearing-impaired children and adolescents in Styrian mainstream schools. To date, however, no consensus has been reached on what their role and responsibilities should be. This thesis therefore aims to look at the role of communication assistants for the hearing-impaired in the federal province of Styria, making a contribution to translation and interpreting studies as well as explaining the different roles of stakeholders and considering their social status. With this purpose in mind, semi-structured interviews with experts working as communication assistants were conducted providing valuable initial insights into their profession. Data analysis was subsequently performed using qualitative content analysis. The study shows that there is no uniform understanding of the role of a communication assistant. Despite the lack of a definition, however, it was possible to identify approaches that show attempts are being made to professionalise communication assistance. According to the experts interviewed, current challenges include creating a thorough description of the occupation and adapting Deaf education to standards of accessible and inclusive education. |