How has Stokoes work impacted the field of deaf education - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... Such people who contributed much in the establishment of sign language include Stokoe who encountered myriads of challenges in learning the language and developing it.
For many years pope considered sign language as a primitive form of language compared to the spoken one, but stoke has managed to change this mentality possessed by many members of the society. Stokoe (1993) with his colleagues learnt to communicate in sign language and they wrote a first dictionary of sign language Stokoe made the deaf people in America to be recognized and by celebrating their culture with them, which made the society to accept them. Additionally, Stokoe and his team made communication between the deaf people and the normal people to be simple after they explained the meaning of the signs and expressions used by the deaf in their dictionary. Fischer (2000) commented that the linguistic experts were able to show that spoken language and sign language are equal.
Apart from Stokoe, several other linguistic experts chipped in their efforts in to form American Sign Language. Carl and Dorothy, who were colleagues of stoke learnt the sign language of the deaf and dumb students and used them to compose a sign language dictionary. Dorothy typed a copy of the sign language while Stokoe worked on the symbols. Karl, Kodak, and Moviola assisted Stokoe to collect form materials for the writing from different deaf centers (Stokoe, 1993). The deaf editors and other deaf and dumb people from all walks of life supported Stokoe and his colleagues by providing labels that provided the meaning to the words used in that dictionary. There was a formal agreement between the deaf editors and Stokoe’s team on the convenience of the labels used.
Making the American Sign Language was not an easy task to Stokoe and his colleagues as they faced severe resistance from both the deaf and the hearing communities. Carl, who assisted him information about ASL, had a challenge in learning a doctorate in ...Download file to see next pagesRead More