[sw-l] questionnaire and mundbildschrift

[Suzanne Pach]

Hi Stefen and Tini and Valerie,

Thanks for your quick and enthusiast reactions!  I’m not
that quick, but here I am...

Valerie wrote this:
>No. I think a questionnaire is not a good idea. Instead,
>if I were you,
>I would take a train to Germany and to Flanders, to visit
>the
>classrooms of deaf children already using SignWriting
>there. Interview
>the teachers and students in both spoken and signed
>languages...if you
>have a little video camera you can record the
>interviews...take some
>photos of the Deaf kids using SignWriting, and then write
>a report to
>the Dutch school system about the German and Flemish
>classrooms...suggesting such an experiment in the
>Netherlands, or
>asking if they would be interested in such a pilot
>project....smile...Visual proof means
something...watching >the faces of
>the Deaf children etc...questionnaires are usually in
>spoken languages
>and are not able to show the visual reality...


I agree about the problems a questionnaire gives.
Nevertheless, I’m still going to make the questionnaire.
One problem is that I will ask their opinion about
something they probably don’t know, so their needs to be
an informationpart in it about SignWriting. I also want to
provide the questionnaire both in written Dutch and in
Sign Language (on video), so they can choose their
favourite language.

I think if I or somebody else once would try to start a
SignWriting experiment in a Dutch deaf school, it is
important to know about how people think about written
sign language in general and SignWriting specifically. A
questionnaire can help to get this information. Probably
some people will be negative about SignWriting, but if I
know why, I know better where to focus on.

But still I really would like to visit the German and
Flemish schools later on! I visit the sites and it looks
really nice and interesting. I also did read about the
Mundbildschrift, but how does it work when you use it in
SignWriting? For example when you want to write down the
Dutch sign for ‘brother’ (to distinguish it from the sign
for ‘sister’), using Mundbildschrift you should draw four
heads in one sign! That seems not really practical.

Well, bye and happy Christmas!

Suzanne.