William C. Stokoe Jr. ( ; July 21, 1919 – April 4, 2000) was an American linguist and a long-time professor at

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the Hearing loss, deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a gramma ...

. His research on American Sign Language (ASL) revolutionized the understanding of ASL in the United States and

sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign ...

s throughout the world. Stokoe's work led to a widespread recognition that sign languages are true languages, exhibiting syntax and morphology, and are not only systems of gesture.

Early life and education

William C. Stokoe Jr. was born July 21, 1919, in

Lancaster, New Hampshire Lancaster is a town located along the Connecticut River in Coös County, New Hampshire, United States. The town is named after the city of Lancaster in England. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 3,218, the second largest in the co ...

. Stokoe graduated from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1941, from which he earned his Ph.D. in English in 1946, specializing in medieval literature. From there, he became an instructor of English at

Wells College Wells College is a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York. The college has cross-enrollment with Cornell University and Ithaca College. For much of its history it was a women's college. Wells College is located in the Finger Lakes ...

Career

From 1955 to 1970, he served as a professor and chairman of the English department at

, after being recruited to the position by his friend and former classmate Dean George Detmold. He published ''Sign Language Structure'' (1960) and co-authored along with Dorothy C. Casterline and

Carl G. Croneberg Carl Gustav Arvid Olof Croneberg (April 26, 1930 – August 7, 2022) was a Swedish-American Deaf linguist known for his work on American Sign Language (ASL). Background Croneberg was born in 1930 in Norrbacka, near Stockholm, and graduated ...

, ''A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles'' (1965). The former was the first place the term "American sign language" was ever formally used. (The fully capitalized version: "American Sign Language," first appeared in the ''Buff and Blue'' in October 1963.) He also started the academic journal '' Sign Language Studies'' in 1972, which he edited until 1996. He established Linstok Press, an academic publishing company, to facilitate the journal's publication. Stokoe's final book, ''Language in Hand'', was published in 2001, after his death. Though the relationship between Stokoe and Gallaudet was not always one of complete support (Gallaudet closed his Linguistics Research Laboratory, wherein he carried out the studies that would lead him to declare ASL a fully formed and legitimate language, in 1984, after he retired), the university awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1988.

Sign language research

Stokoe researched

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expre ...

(ASL) extensively while he worked at

. He coined the term

cherology In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

, the equivalent of

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

for sign language. However, sign language linguists, of which he was the first, now generally use the term "phonology" for signed languages.

Notation system

Stokoe invented a written notation for sign language (now called Stokoe notation) as ASL had no written form at the time. Unlike

SignWriting Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of writing sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic, both in the shapes of the characters, which are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body, and in their spatial arr ...

, which was developed later, it is not pictographic, but drew heavily on the Latin alphabet. Thus the written form of the sign for 'mother' looks like : ͜ 5^x The ' ͜ ' indicates that it is signed at the chin, the '5' that it 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 In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...

, handshape and

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

, to indicate different categories of

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s in ASL. The Stokoe notation system has been used for other sign languages, but is mostly restricted to linguists and academics (as yet, no notation system for a sign language has gained significant use).

Legacy

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 oral languages of the world. Gil Eastman, a Deaf actor and playwright, recommended that Stokoe be called the "Father of Sign Language linguistics."Eastman, Gilbert C. 1980. From Student to Professional: A Personal Chronicle of Sign Language. In: Baker, C., & Battison, R. (Eds.). (1980). Sign language and the Deaf community: Essays in honor of William C. Stokoe. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the deaf, p. 32, https://archive.org/details/signlanguagedeaf00stok

Notes

References

* *
An interview with William C. Stokoe
Gallaudet Research Institute Newsletter, Fall 1984, pp. 3, 5. * Gerhold, Sara C. 2000
William C. Stokoe and the Study of Signed Languages Conference
''Research at Gallaudet'' – A publication of the Gallaudet Research Institute at Gallaudet University (Winter 2000), p. 7.
Full issue

Stokoe gives keynote address at linguistics conference
''Research at Gallaudet'' (Fall 1988), pp. 4–6. * Pearson, Richard. 2000
Linguist William C. Stokoe Jr. Dies at 80
''Washington Post'' (April 8, 2000), p. B6. * Nagourney, Eric. 2000

New York ''Times'' (April 11, 2000), p. B10. * * Neisser, Arden. 1984
Listening to the Deaf
''Cornell Alumni News'' (July 1984), pp. 14–18.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stokoe, William 1919 births 2000 deaths Linguists from the United States Literary critics of English Deaf culture in the United States People involved with sign language Linguists of sign languages Writers from New Hampshire Wells College people Gallaudet University faculty 20th-century linguists