Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Work in Progress

Since I promised a few notes on my work here and since I was just informed by Joseph that I'm supposed to take field notes on the ups and downs of my fieldwork experience, I will hereforth lay down meticulously the trials and tribulations in my quest for data.

It all really started months ago when I decided I would need the intuition of native signers for my thesis project. If I wanted to know more about compounds in ASL I would need to go out and ask signers for their opinions on which two signs formed a unit and which didn't. And it was clear to me from the start that the best place to do my research would be in Montreal. I knew the location, I knew some Deaf people (with whom I'd taken signing classes when I studied there), I thought it would be no problem to find a couple of volunteers to interview. Plus I would get to spend some time in Montreal, which I love and kept missing after I left it last July.

Things turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Montreal's deaf population is considerably smaller than, say Toronto's, partly because LSQ (Langue des Signes Québecoise) is quite strong in the region, as is its oral counterpart French. I contacted the Mackay Rehabilitation Centre, also the Montreal Association of the Deaf, emailing them a leaflet which contained the prerequisites for participating (native signer with at least one Deaf parent) as well as my contact details. I asked them to send it out via email or put it up on the walls of the Mackay Centre, but I fear no leaflets were actually put up on the walls. I spoke to a former teacher of mine, Lea Mavroudis, about finding subjects. I contacted my 'Psychology of the Deaf' professor, I even posted a notice on facebook market place. Furthermore I contacted Rachel Mayberry, a linguistics professor at UC San Diego who worked on the acquisition of ASL in Montreal a few years back. She put me in contact with one of her co-workers, Marc-André Bernier, who had assisted her in recruiting deaf participants for her studies in Montreal.
First I didn't receive any positive feedback. It was July, people were on vacation and nobody seemed available. Then Marc-André got back to me and explained that he was working in Toronto at the Deaf Culture Centre at the moment and could try to help me find subjects there. Through him I found my first and up to now only participant Adrian, who happened to be a friend of a friend of mine from Vancouver. I contacted Adrian and we scheduled a meeting in Toronto.

That's all I really knew before I stepped into the plane in Berlin, I had one informant and was hoping to find more through him. I didn't know where I would interview him yet, for he didn't seem to like the idea of being interviewed at his place, and I didn't know where I would be staying in Toronto. I asked at UofT, at George Brown College (which among other things has an ASL English interpreting programme) and at the Deaf Culture Centre (DCC) and heard back from its co-director Joanne that I would be able to use space at the DCC. So on my second day in Toronto, Friday, I walked down to Toronto's historic district, where the DCC is located, and walked in. That was my 'Feuertaufe' in terms of ASL usage, and I don't think I did too well. I had to somehow make myself understood in ASL, and I had to fingerspell quite a bit, until Slava, the IT communications person at the Centre, took care of me. He speaks English well and accompanied his signing by speech. He showed me the opening hours of the Centre and also showed me their studio. The studio is an open area with green curtains, very good light and a tripod and camera. Slava explained to me how to use the tripod with my camera, got me an extension cord and generally made sure I was well equipped to do my recordings. I could even have used their video cameras, hadn't I brought my own. I was surprised and grateful for the DCC people's generosity in letting me use their space and equipment and I will certianly mention them in my acknowledgements.
I had my first interview there on Sunday, and I was sooooo prepared. Not only had I checked that I had all my cables on me, enough recording space (4 tapes), knew how to work the camera, had gone over all my test items again (except for the adjectives, I went over them right before the interview), I had tied my hair together so it wouldn't be in my way when signing, I had put on a black shirt because they provide the best contrast to white signing hands - in other words, I was prepared. I had also printed out a short questionnaire to elicit information on my participant's history of Deafness, I had printed out a short explanation of the tasks that awaited the participant and let them sign an 'Einverständniserklärung'.

I got to the DCC an hour in advance and was lucky to meet Jessica, who works at the centre and who helped me set up my camera in front of the green curtain. I had placed a table and two chairs behind it and thought Adrian and I would both be signing more or less toward the camera. Things turned out differently - we looked at each other during the interview, so the camera caught us in profile most of the time. I did signal to Adrian once to sign more toward the camera, but I still got lots of profile.

While waiting for Adrian to arrive Jessica introduced me to Lucia, a girl from a Deaf family who's involved with the DCC and that Sunday stepped by to guide a couple of visitors thorugh the exhibition part of the DCC. Seizing my chance I explained my study to her and asked if she had time to participate. She agreed to be interviewed the following Friday (Aug. 29) and gave me her blackberry email address. I could barely believe my luck in having found another native signer in so short a time. It bolstered my confidence in the Adrian interview. I felt more comfortable signing with him than in my first ASL encounters in Toronto, since now I was on firm ground, I had practised the vocabulary I needed for the study. Still, Adrian had to repeat and fingerspell for clarification quite a bit, since my receptive ASL skills are rather low. It's such a fast language that my visual processing system is working 100% and still too slow.

more on the interview next time

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