Cover next page > title: Seeing Language in Sign : The Work of William C. Stokoe author

< previous page
page_116
next page >
Page Charlotte Baker-Shenk, a linguist who worked with Stokoe in the LRL, believes this confidence in others, this utter lack of any feeling of superiority, was the most amazing thing about Stokoe. "Bill simply did not need control to be a leader" she says. "His philosophy was simpleI trust you, you are bright, creative, and self-initiating. He was therewith his library, with his research,
with his readiness to dialogue about any question. Bill was the epitome of true intellectual curiosity, ready to talk for hours and hours with anyone who wanted to talk to him" The "us versus them" mentality operated on more than one level, as the LRL was compared to other research labs. In Ursula Bellugi, who held a PhD. in education from Harvard University, became the director of the Laboratory for Language and
Cognitive Studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. While at Harvard, she had investigated the native acquisition of
English by hearing children, and her interest had shifted to the acquisition of American Sign Language as a first language. She and her husband, Edward Klima, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, San Diego, had also been awarded several grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. It was inevitable that Bellugi's and
Stokoe's labs would be compared. "Competition" is too strong a word. According to Harlan Lane, the two labs differed in emphasis Bellugi's focused on "ASL morphology and psycholinguistic issues Stokoe's pursued "anthropological linguistics"
with an 'emphasis on the phonology."33
There were differences in style as well. It was generally believed that Bellugi's people were more interested in collecting data than in promulgating changes that would benefit the deaf. By contrast, Stokoe's group took a strong interest in getting the word out about findings that could improve the status of deaf people. In 1972 when Mouton Press stopped publishing Sign Language
Studies, a journal devoted exclusively to deaf issues, Stokoe decided to become the editor, and in 1975 he became the publisher as well. In 1972 he also began a newsletter, Signs for Our Times, which was circulated from the lab to more than a thousand readers. While Stokoe was quick, perhaps too quick, to publish new writings in the field (some said that quality suffered as a result, Bellugi's "camp" was faulted by some for being

Download 2.48 Mb.

Share with your friends: