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

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Page the major events in the United States pertaining to language use in the education of the deaf" Bill Stokoe's name appears at the point of acceleration in the shift from oral to manual communication, one hundred years after Bell's first advocacy of oralism and fifteen years before the Congressional passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. (The act guarantees all children equal access to an education in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their particular needs. Bill Stokoe is flattered and amused by the attention he now receives. In May of 1990 the BBC aired a three-part series on language entitled "Born Talking" in which Stokoe, along with Carol Padden and Ted Supallatwo of the foremost deaf linguists in the United States todaywas interviewed by Jonathan Miller. In July of 1991 Stokoe attended a convention of sign language interpreters, many of whom purchased the 1976 revised edition of his dictionary and asked him to autograph their copies. Stokoe notes, "We've come along way from the time the original dictionaries were left in their shipping boxes in the basement of
Gallaudet, being ruined by water dripping from the swimming pool above."36
Sue Livingston, an educator whose dissertation, "Levels of Development in the Language of Deaf Children" appeared in the
Fall 1983 issue of Sign Language Studies, describes Stokoe as "our Trager and Smith" In this she represents the views of many educators, interpreters, and researchers in the field. Stokoe, she says, "articulated for us the observations we were making in our classrooms about language and learning as we taught deaf children in the early 1970sobservations the 'experts' kept telling us were wrong. He published articles in Sign Language Studies that were considered heretical by those in control of deaf education,
but which gave us the confidence to realize that they were the ones who were wrong."37
Given Stokoe's current stature, readers of Sign Language Studies and other publications of Linstok Press often assume the press is a major operation complete with modern office facilities and a full support staff. Until recently, however, when the press moved to Sign Media, Inc, in Burtonsville, Maryland, Stokoe continued to work alone in the basement of his house.

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