[sw-l] Final Year Dissertation - Please advise.

[Ingvild Roald]

Dear Stacy,

how about using Cecilia Flood's doctoral dissertation as one your starting
points, and then study what teachers and students have published on the
net (SignWriting.org and Gebaerdenschrift.de). There are also some
statements recently on this list. Then the topic would be something like
'Testimonies from SignWriting users'.

All the best,

Ingvild Roald
Norway

sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu writes:
>Dear All,
>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.
>Many thanks in advance for reading this message, I hope to hear from some
>of you soon.
>Yours
>Stacy Busek
>
>Valerie
>
>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'
>
>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
>volunteer0ing 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 res0ultant 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 sol0ely 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).
>
>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.
>
>Many thanks for having taken the time to read this letter and I look
>forward to hearing from you.
>
>Yours
>
>Stacy Busek
>
>
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