Introducing LFB

[Louis-Félix Bergeron]

Hi everyone!

I ª>  new on this list and, in this  ©_ et us reintroduce all of us k  wave,
I ª_ l introduce myself for the first time and ask you some questions.

I ª>  Louis-Felix Bergeron, a hearing person living in Montreal, Quebec
(Canada). I ª>  a master degree student in linguistics at the Universite
du Quebec a Montreal. Before I started to learn Quebec Sign Language
(LSQ) in fall 1997, I knew nothing about deafness (with small or capital
D) and sign languages. In fact, I have a prelingual deaf grand-aunt
married to a deaf man, but I had very few contacts with them before
recently. In fall 1997, while I was a literature student at the same
university, I started to learn LSQ "just for fun". I fell in love with
this language (and, few weeks later, with a Deaf woman e   and I just
wanted to know everything about it, about deafness (mostly Deafness),
deaf history, deaf culture e  name it. In 1999, I became a LSQ-French
interpreter and I worked about four years in college and university
interpretation for the Deaf.

But a few months after I began to learn LSQ, I wondered myself why LSQ
hasn ª²  a writing system. I asked few Deaf about writing in LSQ and the
answers were, at best, "A writing system?!? How could LSQ be written?"
or "Why would I write in LSQ? I can write in French!" (I ª>  sure most of
you have heard things like that about your respective SL and oral
language).

So I decided to study the possibility for LSQ to have a writing system,
especially for bilingual bicultural education. I ª>  sure I ª>  not the
first person who studies this question, but apparently nobody in Quebec
had ever proposed to have a writing system for LSQ (if somebody did, the
news didn ª²  spread out e  . So I want to ask you information about your
experiments, your findings, your researches so I could say to Quebec
Deaf, deaf teachers, parents of deaf children, etc., that it is a good
idea and it is possible to have a writing system for LSQ, that other
Deaf, deaf teachers, etc. of other SL have tried it and that it works.
Of course, I also want to know about what didn ª²  work so we can explain
why and suggest improvements. I ª>  studying SW and other systems (mostly
notation systems) to render a spectrum of what currently exists to write
down SL on paper, with what purposes and uses, etc.

I would be grateful to have advices, references, articles, etc. on the
following topics (in fact, they are not really separate topics, they are
mostly different ways to say the same thing) :
- Research about SL writing system in bilingual bicultural education;
- Effects of literacy in SL first language on literacy in oral second
language;
- Effects of literacy in SL first language on deaf empowerment,
self-image, self-esteem, perception of their SL, etc.;
- Effects of the SL writing system form on the learning of the written
second language;
- What is transferable from learning and using a writing system in SL to
learning and using of the written second language?;
- Effects of SL writing system on reading models (bottom-up, top-down,
interactive, etc.);
- Any other relevant topics on that subject.

I wish my English is clear enough (I apologize if it isn't) and I thank
you all for anything you could share and I will also share my news with
this list form times to times.

Louis-Felix