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

Sign Language Sign language uses a manual form of communication and the body gesture language to convey a messageand is different from the spoken language that uses sound patterns. Sign language involves simultaneous use of body parts to express a person’s feelings. Both spoken language and sign language are natural, but there are notable distinctions between the two sets of languages. Sign language exists in the community of people who are deaf and dumb although some people without these disabilities have learnt the language to interact with the deaf and dumb communities.

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. Reference pages: Stokoe (page 131 lines 1-6, page 135 lines 16-21, page 136 lines 1-15) and Fischer (197 lines 3-13) 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.Reference pages: (page 133 lines 16-27, page 131 lines 1-6 page 132 lines 1-14) 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 linguistic anthropology at catholic university. Carl was deaf and he performed very well, but the new university administration cut short his dreams to pursue his course.

This was because many people in the society did not accept the deaf as normal human beings due to lack of proper communication between the two sets of people (Stokoe, 1993). On the other hand, many people believed that sign language was not a true language and hence it was hard for Stokoe and his team to convince people to accept ASL as a language itself.Reference pages: (page 134, page 139 lines 5-27) In conclusion, the development of sign language as faced several challenges before the society came to accept it.

Stokoe and his team contributed much in making the sign language a formal language by developing its new dictionary and other books to refer.ReferencesFischer, S. (2000). More Than Just Handwaving: The Mutual Contributions of Sign Language and Linguistics. Brighton: Psychology Press.Stokoe, W. (1993). Dictionary making: Then & Now. Sign Language Studies. < https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sign_language_studies/summary/v079/79.stokoe.html>.