William Stokoe

William Stokoe

William C. Stokoe, Jr. ( /ˈstoʊkiː/ STOH-kee; New Hampshire, July 21, 1919 – Chevy Chase, Maryland, April 4, 2000) was a scholar who researched American Sign Language (ASL) extensively while he worked at Gallaudet University. He coined the term cherology, the equivalent of phonology for sign language. However, sign language linguists, of which he may have been the first, now generally use the term "phonology" for signed languages.

Stokoe graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY in 1941, from where in 1946 he earned his Ph.D. in English, specifically medieval literature. From there, he became an instructor of English at Wells College in Aurora, NY.

From 1955 to 1970 he served as a professor and chairman of the English department at Gallaudet University. He published Sign Language Structure (1960) and co-authored A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles (1965). The latter was the first place the term American Sign Language was ever formally used. He also started the academic journal Sign Language Studies in 1972, which he edited until 1996 . Stokoe's final book, Language in Hand, was published in 2001, after his death.

Though the relationship between Stokoe and Gallaudet was not always one of complete support (Gallaudet closed his Linguistics Research Laboratory, wherein he carried out the studies that would lead him to declare ASL a fully formed and legitimate language, in 1984), the university awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1988.

Through the publication of his work, he was instrumental in changing the perception of ASL from that of a broken or simplified version of English to that of a complex and thriving natural language in its own right with an independent syntax and grammar as functional and powerful as any found in the oral languages of the world. Because he raised the prestige of ASL in academic and educational circles, he is considered a hero in the Deaf community.