Talk:William Stokoe

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About the References section[edit]

Many of the references have links to gallyprotest.org, but that site is appearing unfinished. Should those links be removed? --jasper jon (talk) 02:18, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled[edit]

I just learned about Stokoe in a two-hour PBS documentary "Through Deaf Eyes," an excellent history of ASL and Deaf in America. I'll try to find some more material to fill out this stub bio.Birdbrainscan 02:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation[edit]

Did he really pronounce his name "STOE-kee"? It sounds pretty improbable. Maproom (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt he did. I don't know any other Stokoes that do so.

Agreed. STOE-koe and /ˈstoʊki/ don't appear to match. Any insight?

Yes. (That's STOE-kee, with a double 'e'; rhymes with "smoky", correctly represented in IPA as /ˈstoʊki/.) I wrote my dissertation on ASL at Berkeley in the 70s, working with Lynn Friedman, who'd been a student of his; and I corresponded with him. He did indeed pronounce it /ˈstoʊki/.

Yes, he pronounced it "STOE-kee." He was pipe major of the Washington Scottish Pipe Band in the 1950s and a very competent bagpiper. He used to have us practice at Gallaudet, thereby minimizing public nuisance complaints.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.51.171.164 (talk) 21:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I developed an ASCII transcription system for Stokoe notation. It's been used in at least one dissertation besides my own. Would there be interest in linking to it from the article?

Thnidu (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Reorganization started, expansion needed[edit]

I've reorganized the article, which before today had a five-paragraph lede and a two-paragraph body. So far, all I've done is to introduce some section headings (Early life, Education, Career, ASL research, and Impact) and move text around into the new sections. A I've also added a one-paragraph Summary at the top to provide an overview.

This article is a stub and needs considerable expansion, especially in the new section 5, Sign language research. The main problem with it, is that gives no hint of Stokoe's importance in the field. In its current state, the article reads as if Stokoe is some minor scholar who came up with a new notation and that's about it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, Stokoe is a colossus in his field whose impact can scarcely be overstated. As Chomsky is to linguistics, so is Stokoe to sign language linguistics. In some ways, Stokoe's impact is even bigger than Chomsky (albeit in a smaller discipline): after all, although Chomsky revolutionized linguistics, he was not the first--there were many important linguists and plenty of research in linguistics before he came around and upset the apple cart. Before Stokoe, there was nothing in sign language linguistics; zip, nada. He created it. He's so central to the field, he's the kind of guy for whom other important researchers in the field get together and write books in honor of him.^[1]

The section on sign language research should be greatly expanded and become the bulk of the article and have multiple subsections, while the stuff on early life, education, and all the rest becomes a relatively minor part just to introduce him and round out the article.

Besides its importance for linguistics, the impact of Stokoe's research on deaf people and culture was profound. The new understanding of ASL and other sign languages as full and complete languages like any other human language and not just some sort of shameful, broken-down or primitive system of ungrammatical, incoherent babble suitable only for use among illiterates had a profound impact on Deaf culture and eventually on the teaching of sign language around the world. This also was revolutionary, as it changed the view of deaf people about themselves. It's difficult to explain in just a few words how big an impact this was, but Gannon's Deaf Heritage is a good place to start.^[2] The Impact section should be expanded to address this topic, and then probably link to Deaf culture as the Main article for it. (I've included a couple of references above to make it easy to just import them to the article when appropriate.)Mathglot (talk) 22:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Baker, C; Battison, R; Stokoe, W C (1980). Baker, Charlotte; Battison, Robin (eds.). Sign language and the deaf community: essays in honor of William C. Stokoe. National Association of the Deaf. ISBN 978-0913072363. LCCN 80082286.
^ Gannon, Jack (1981). Deaf Heritage–A Narrative History of Deaf America. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf. ISBN 1563685140.

Some Recommendations[edit]

This article can definitely be improved through further research and expansion on William Stokoe's life and experiences, as well as his and his colleagues' research. Also, a lot of the links did not work in the References section, so these also need to be deleted and updated as new information is added. If the References are updated and the content of this article is further expanded, it could end up being a really great Wiki bio! — Preceding unsigned comment added by GiannaParisi (talk • contribs) 02:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[essays-1] Baker, C; Battison, R; Stokoe, W C (1980). Baker, Charlotte; Battison, Robin (eds.). Sign language and the deaf community: essays in honor of William C. Stokoe. National Association of the Deaf. ISBN 978-0913072363. LCCN 80082286.

[Heritage-2] Gannon, Jack (1981). Deaf Heritage–A Narrative History of Deaf America. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf. ISBN 1563685140.

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