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

< previous page
page_136
next page >
Page had published any work whatsoever in sign language linguistics that had stood the test of time. Bill should be seen as the trailblazer he identified and constrained the problem for other linguistic researchers. But overtime, I began to realize that
Bill was interested in exploring only certain research questions and that he was a bit flighty in his research. You know, he went from being an English professor to a linguist to an anthropologist in one decade. I think in some cases he would choose what interested him, and that was a limitation. He certainly didn't lack for zeal, but Bill could only see part of the picture atone time. There maybe some truth in these observations. Stokoe's articles and speeches from the late 'sand early 's reflect a certain lack of focus while attempting to keep up with developments in the field he continued to teach, run the lab, and attend numerous conferences and conventions. Ironically, Stokoe's growing reputation resulted in the invitations that distracted him from the kind of in-depth investigation that had earned that reputation. One must remember that Stokoe worked on Sign
Language Structure for three years and on the dictionary for five. Yet in the late sand early she was delivering two or three addresses a month on topics as varied as "Gestural Signs in Codes and Languages" "Social Correlates of Sign Color
Terms," "Language as a Foundation of Thought" and "Signing Apes and Evolving Linguistics" James Woodward puts it succinctly "Some of Bill's work was extraordinarily innovative some of it was not so innovative, and I think that's true of everybody's work. After awhile even those people who constantly create, create smaller and smaller things. Bill's original discoveries made it possible for people to specialize. In the lab we were all focusing on one or two special topicshow could Bill know all about all of them?''16
Furthermore, Stokoe was spending more time publishing Sign Language Studies and directing Linstok Press (lin for linguistics,
stok for Stokoe), the small publishing house that he had established with his inheritance. (When he named the press Stokoe also had in mind the old word linstock, meaning the staff that holds alighted match for firing cannons. He chose the word

Download 2.48 Mb.

Share with your friends: