Chinese Sign Language

[GONG Qunhu]

Dear Dr. Ulrike Zeshan (and all)

I am happy to know that you will include sign language(s) from China in your project.  I wonder  which variaty of CSL  you are going to investigate? There are  regional CSL dialects in China and the "standard" is weak.  In fact the  term "Zhongguo Shouyu"(Chinese Sign Language) is either an all-encompassing title for all the regional dialects or , to most deaf people and educators, a list of 5000 plus words(for some reason, with very heavy influence of Shanghai sign language in the first half of the words) intended to be promoted officially as a common speech -- but the current situation is that deaf people in all major cities only sign their own "Difang Shouyu" (local sign language).  

I am a hearing linguist. I have been working on a project of CSL(Shanghai) investigation and analysis.  A couple of  weeks ago,  I got a chance to do preliminary field investigation of local sign language words of 15 cities with the Swadesh list (200 lexical items):  there are differences/variations in core words as one expected. I did it in Dalian at the first summer training class for deaf teachers in China, and all my informants are deaf teachers from deaf schools across China. 

Best wishes,

Gong Qunhu

Prof. of Linguistics
Fudan University, Shanghai
China


-----Original Message-----
From: For the discussion of linguistics and signed languages. [mailto:SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA]On Behalf Of Ulrike Zeshan
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 4:48 PM
To: SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
Subject: new address and new project


Dear list members,

I have moved to the Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics in
Nijmegen, Netherlands. Please note my new contact details:

Mail:
Dr. Ulrike Zeshan
Max-Planck-Institut f ÿÿ  Psycholinguistik
Postbus 310
6500 AH Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Phone:
(+31) (0)24 - 3521911 (this is the switchboard)
Fax:
(+31) (0)24 - 3521213
E-mail:
Ulrike.Zeshan at mpi.nl
Ulrike_Zeshan at yahoo.com

For the next two weeks, it's safer to send e-mails to both my addresses,
afterwards you may use the .mpi address only.

I will be at the MPI for four years to continue my work on sign language
typology. My new project has been fully funded from the German Science
Foundation (DFG), including a number of positions for research
assistants and informants, and we will officially start the project on
November 1st. Except for two hearing researchers working on
village-based sign languages, all people working in the project will be
deaf people, mostly from developing countries. In the first year, we
will be working on sign languages from China, South Korea, Turkey,
Russia and India. Our first large cross-linguistic project will deal
with possession and existentials.

More information about the project will be available towards the end of
this year via the MPI's website (www.mpi.nl). I hope to interact
extensively with the international sign linguistics community, so please
feel free to contact me any time for more information about the project.

Best regards,

Ulrike Zeshan