<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV class=RTE><STRONG>Dear All,</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE><STRONG>I sent the message below to Val today and along with her own personal response to my questions and requests she has suggested that I also post my questions to you all in the hope of gaining some more specialist advice.</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE><STRONG>Many thanks in advance for reading this message, I hope to hear from some of you soon.</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE><STRONG>Yours </STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE><STRONG>Stacy Busek</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE> </DIV>
<DIV class=RTE>Valerie </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>I wonder if I could ask for some support for the final year dissertation that I am about to embark on, the working title of which is 'SignWriting: An Investigation into the benefits of promoting a writing system for Sign Language users'
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<DIV></DIV>I am a final year Undergraduate Linguistics and Psychology student studying in Bristol, England, doing my final year dissertation in the field of Linguistics. I know that through my research I want to support the values of using SignWriting, a topic on which I have commited a lot of hours in both research and personal interest. Furthermore I know that this will not be the final piece of research that I will do in this area, having already established links with James Shepard-Kegl I am planning on volunteering in Bluefields on graduating next year. My concern is that I am fairly restricted by my course, having to write a dissertation of only eight thousand words, and I do not want my research question to be too broad. As I have already mentioned, I know I will dedicate more time in the future to SignWriting so am not concerned about covering all aspects of SignWriting and its linguistic merit in this piece of research - something which would only hinder the clarity!
of such a shorrt piece of work and the resultant grade. I am asking therefore that you could spare the time to guide me in the right direction with my research question. Are there any areas of SignWriting that would be particularly amenable to being studied at this level? Are there any particular recent research papers which would merit being duplicated at my level in order that I may be able to support the research? Given the time frame would you suggest a literary study of the development of SignWriting? I have a month in January to dedicate solely to research if you would suggest the primary research would be of benefit for this undertaking and must hand in the completed piece of research in May - giving me 7 months to complete my work. I sign BSL to level two and am fluent in Spanish (this I include only for your knowledge, it may be of use in helping me to make this decision).
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<DIV></DIV>I do have several ideas of my own in the event that you are unable to support me in my studies, so please do not worry unduly if this is a huge imposition upon your time.
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<DIV></DIV>Many thanks for having taken the time to read this letter and I look forward to hearing from you.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Yours
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Stacy Busek
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