Dr. William C. Stokoe, Jr., former English professor at Gallaudet University, is globally recognized as the creator of the linguistic study for sign languages used by the deaf. He moved to Washington D.C. in 1955 and began teaching at Gallaudet after having received his bachelor’s and Ph.D. from Cornell. At the time when Stokoe began teaching, ASL was thought to be a corrupt visual form of English instead of its own unique language. ASL and other signed languages at the time were suppressed in educational institutions due to the rise of oralism and thus, students were not only discouraged from signing but forced into programs that favored instructions in articulation and lip reading.
I personally find it very interesting and also quite inspiring as to the number of obstacles and controversies ASL had to overcome in its short roughly 200 years history. This is an aspect of ASL that we have discussed several times in class, the fact that ASL IS NOT SIGNED ENGLISH! At the time, people who were deaf were considered to be “imperfect” or “broken” and thus, the appropriate response was to try and reform these people in the hopes they could be integrated into our “modern” society. We know now that this is not true and that Deaf and hard of hearing (hoh) people do not necessarily have anything “wrong” with them. Just because they are different and their culture more unique, does not mean that they are fundamentally flawed in any way as human beings. Having met such wonderful people as Ms. Kaye and Ms. Reba, it angers me to know that others at the time would immediately look down on them for signing and would probably have forced them give up on ASL in favor of something more traditional.
We all know Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone but what most people are not aware of is the extent to which Bell influenced Deaf education. Bell was a strong believer of oralism which was the idea that Deaf individuals be taught speech and how to lip read as their primary means of communication. Bell believed that this was the only way for Deaf persons to become “regular” members of society. In 1880, Bell gave a speech in Milan in which he encouraged Deaf educators throughout Europe to eliminate sign languages from the school’s curriculums in favor of oral teaching methodologies. Congress upheld this viewpoint and banned sign language use in school. The Deaf community had to practice and teach ASL secretly. We often celebrate historical figures for their monumental achievements and contributions to humanity but often times, there is more to them than meets the eye. To most people, Alexander Graham Bell was a hero because his invention, the telephone, made life so much easier for people. However, I’m sure that there are those in the ASL community, perhaps from a lineage of Deaf ancestors, who view Bell as the man who tried to take their language away and replace it.
Dr. Stokoe’s rejected Bell’s notion in favor of oralism and instead proposed that ASL was its own unique language form. He began setting up a descriptive system for the language to convey that message to other linguists and the general public. This led to the creation of the first modern linguistic treatment of a signed language called “Sign Language Structure” which was published in 1960. In 1965, Stokoe and his two colleagues also published the first ASL dictionary. In 1972, Stokoe found the journal “Sign Language Studies” to encourage greater scholarly work within ASL and other signed languages. He was a great advocate for the linguistic and educational rights of deaf people. In 1980, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) awarded him in recognition of his many years of service to the American and world deaf communities. I am personally very thankful to Mr. Stokoe, it was his efforts that furthered the deaf narrative and essentially gave the deaf community a “voice” through which they could distinguish and develop their own personal cultural identity.
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