sign language typology - project announcement

[Ulrike Zeshan]

Hello Susan,

thanks for your answer, of course I understand that you need more information
before committing yourself. Which language were you thinking of for contributing,
ASL or NS or both?

I have not finished the questionnaires yet, but can give you some general
explanation at this stage as to how the whole thing will work:

The level of involvement by the various co-researchers in the project actually
depends on each participant, and there will be several levels of involvement.
There will be several different questionnaires depending on how much time you
can spend on this project, and there will be various options for contributing
data (from written information with reference to pictures to transcribed video
data). Participants will have quite open choices as to what is possible for
them to do. This was also the case in the previous projects, so I have all
kinds of responses ranging from only basic written answers up to fully
transcribed video data with explanations.

This is how we will proceed initially:

The first step of participating in the project will consist of filling
out a background questionnaire from which I can understand who will
participate in this project (single person, team, what background in
sign and/or linguistics), and what practicalities have to be solved
(e.g. how much time you can be spend on contributing to the project,
what the time schedule might look like, etc.). At this point, participants will
be able to say how much time they can spend on this project and what is their
preferred time schedule. In the previous project, minimum time requirement was
"a few hours" (meant for writing up some answers and providing some
supplementary pictures), and more extensive involvement was for "a few days"
(meant for recording and translating some limited video data, such as example
phrases and sentences, and writing up answers for a more extensive
questionnaire).

I am currently revising the previous version of this background
questionnaire and will email it to all participants when it is ready.
Then the next step will be to send out detailed questionnaires and
instructions for participants. So far, I have received expressions of
interest from 8 different countries. My own project staff will of course contribute
data
from their sign languages over this year and the next. So it is promising to
become a project with broad coverage again.

I hope this information about the organizational set/up can help you decide. If you
have questions about the content of the questionnaires, please don't hesitate to
ask me, I can send you a preliminary version so that you get an idea of the kinds
of things we will be looking at. In terms of time commitment, tt is always possible
to say no even after you
have replied to the background questionnaire. So if you would like to go ahead
with the first step, please let me know. In that case, you can expect to hear
from me again later this month.

Best greetings,

Ulrike


P.S. As a follow-up on our previous mail exchange about the Japanese informant, I
would prefer if you could make the initial contact and invite her to be a visitor
in my project for 2005. Generally, visitors should stay for about 3 months, airline
ticket and accommodation is covered by my project funds (plus sometimes a per diem
under certain conditions), and visitors should be able to bring video data with
them from their country of origin (ideally between 5-10 hours of video data) so
that we can work on the data here. In terms of scope of the project, I think you
know enough about it to be able to motivate her. If she is interested in principle,
let me know and I will then get in touch with her.







Susan Fischer wrote:

> Ulrike,
> Have you made up the questionnaire?  I'd like to see it before
> committing.
> Susan