William Stokoe

William C. Stokoe, Jr. (pronounced STOE-kee, (1919 - 2000) was a scholar who researched American Sign Language (ASL) extensively while he worked at Gallaudet University.

From 1955 to 1970 he served as a professor and chairman of the English department at Gallaudet. He published Sign Language Structure and co-authored A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles (1965).

Through the publication of his work he was instrumental in changing the perception of ASL from that of a broken or simplified version of English to that of a complex and thriving natural language in its own right with an independent syntax and grammar as functional and powerful as any found in the spoken languages of the world. Because he raised the prestige of ASL in academic and educational circles, he is considered a hero in the Deaf community.

Life

William Stokoe was born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and had one brother, Jim, who was two years younger. He spent his childhood in a rural area near Rochester, New York.

William Stokoe attended Cornell University for his undergraduate degree. He always received good grades, and was awarded a Boldt Scholarship, as well as other scholarships to assist him in paying his tuition. His family was not extremely well off, and he had to work at times while in college. He was also involved in fencing. He was involved in Cornell's ROTC program, as well as fencing. He had a nervous breakdown in 1940 and spent some time in the camp hospital, where he was given the diagnosis of manic-depression and given some medication. He took a year off to recover, and returned to Cornell in 1941. When he returned he received the Boldt scholarship again, was the co-captain of the fencing team, and made Phi Beta Kappa. He never had another recurrence of his illness, but always found it difficult that he was not able to serve during the war.

Shortly after returning to Cornell, Stokoe met Ruth Palmeter, who was also a Cornell student. They were married in November of 1942, and Ruth was a great force of stability during difficult times. William's brother Jim died in December of 1942, and this was a very hard time, as the two were very close. For a short time, William and Ruth assisted with the family farm, but left for graduate school at Cornell in 1943.

William and Ruth had two children: Helen Marie Stokoe, born in 1947, and James Stafford Stokoe, born in 1951. In her later years, Ruth became ill with Alzheimers, and William cared for her.

Work

In 1955, Wiliam Stokoe was invited by one of his oldest friends from Cornell University, George Detmold, to teach English at Gallaudet. During this time Gallaudet was undergoing major curriculum improvements and Detmold's task was to get Gallaudet accredited. Stokoe's acceptance of this offer was a great benefit for Gallaudet College, as there were few professors with Ph.D.s at that time at Gallaudet.

Stokoe arrived at Gallaudet in 1955. Stokoe had no training in sign language when he arrived at the college. His only previous experience with anyone deaf had been a blacksmith in his hometown who communicated by writing, and this had been a positive experience. He was unexposed to the negative views of sign language and the deaf that were prevalent at Gallaudet and elsewhere at this time. His specialty was Middle and Old English, particularly Chaucer. He continued to publish literary articles when he first arrived at Gallaudet. He was rode his motorcycle to school and practiced Scottish bagpipes on campus so that no one would have to hear him.

Shortly after his arrival at Gallaudet, Stokoe began learning sign language. Signing did not come easy to Stokoe, and while he learned to sign, he was never a great signer. Some resented Stokoe's close friendship with Detmold, the Dean of Instruction. In noticing deaf people sign with each other, Stokoe could tell that they communicated in an actual language. The word order and the sentence structure was different than a manually coded system for English, yet deaf signers were able to communicate with one another perfectly well. Although he had no formal training in linguistics, he soon discovered that sign language had its own set of rules and language structure that differed from English, but yet appeared to be a true language. These ideas contradicted what the experts and the deaf believed about sign language at the time: that it was an imitation of English and something to be embarrassed by.

Detmold encouraged Stokoe in his interest in the study of sign language. Gallaudet was accredited in 1957, and William Stokoe spent that summer working with two well-known linguists.

Stokoe invented a written notation for sign language (now called Stokoe notation) as ASL had no written form at the time. Unlike SignWriting, which was developed later, it is not pictographic, but drew heavily on the Latin alphabet.

Thus written form of the sign for the 'mother' looks like U5x. The 'U' indicates that it is signed at the chin, the '5' that is uses a spread hand (the '5' of ASL), and the 'x' that the thumb touches the chin. Stokoe coined the terms tab, dez, and sig, meaning sign location, handshape and motion, to indicate different categories of phonemes in ASL. Some argued his use of technical terminology made his ideas more difficult to understand. The Stokoe notation system has been used for other sign languages, but is mostly restricted to linguists and academics.

Major Works

• Stokoe, William C. 1972. Semiotics and human sign languages. Approaches to semiotics, 21. The Hague: Mouton.

• Stokoe, William C., Dorothy C. Casterline, and Carl G. Croneberg. 1976. A dictionary of American sign language on linguistic principles. [Silver Spring, Md.]: Linstok Press.

• Stokoe, William C. 1978. Sign language structure the first linguistic analysis of American sign language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press. ISBN 0932130038 ISBN 9780932130037

• Armstrong, David F., William C. Stokoe, and Sherman Wilcox. 1995. Gesture and the nature of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521462134 ISBN 9780521462136 ISBN0521467721 ISBN 9780521467728

• Stokoe, William C. 2002. Language in hand why sign came before speech. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. ISBN 156368103X ISBN 9781563681035

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Maher, Jane Seeing Language in Sign: The Work of William C. Stokoe ISBN 156368053X
• Stokoe, William Language in Hand ISBN 156368103X

External Links

• http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/Stokoecompliments.html
• http://deafwiki.org/index.php?title=William_Stokoe
• http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/Stokoeletter.html

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