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

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Page philosophy that originally had inspired his involvement in sign language. "The study of sign languages of the deaf has two chief ends" he declared "to gain knowledge about what language is, and to help forward the education of deaf people" With great pride he claimed credit "for starting, or for helping on their way, several native signers who became qualified linguists and anthropologists" In 1977 Stokoe became eligible fora sabbatical. He and Ruth traveled to England, where he had been appointed a visiting fellow at Clare College, Cambridge University. There, Stokoe delivered an address entitled "Linguistics and Anthropology in
Sign Language" In the speech he added historical and cultural perspectives to his linguistic findings to further justify the recognition and use of sign language. "Knowledge about human societies and their languages was blocked fora longtime by our Western inability to see beyond our own several languages" he observed, concluding with the admonition that "blindness to sign languages in the twentieth century will look as ridiculous now as was deafness to Chaucer's English or Dante's Italian six hundred years ago."22
The Stokoes were given an apartment on Scholar's Walk, and they dined in the common room with "people from all branches of academia" Stokoe remembers that "there was a good bar there, a good coffee machine, and great conversation" As always, he and Ruth were happiest when traveling together. It was their third trip to Europe, and they were getting to know England well enough to feel at home there.
But the travel, the good conversation, the absence of politics "made it even harder" for Stokoe to return to Gallaudet, where "the president and his six vice presidents would meet and set college policy without consulting the faculty" While Stokoe was on sabbatical the administration had adopted a resolution whereby all signing and interpreting at Gallaudet would be performed in "Sim Com" or simultaneous communication (the speaker of Sim Com talks and signs simultaneously. Stokoe 'wrote letters to the administration" in protest, "but it was butting my head against a soft belly."23
It was as if all the research supporting American Sign Language had never occurred. Dennis Cokely recollects that a study

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