The Study and Use of Sign Language

THE STUDY AND USE OF SIGN LANGUAGE William C. Stokoe Historical perspective. At its outset in 1817, education of the deaf in America was synonomous with sign language. The method of teaching in signs of the natural sign language of the deaf, augmented with signs invented to represent grammatical signals, was easily adapted to the American scene. As in France and many other countries to which it had spread, this method produced in a few school generations an educated deaf elite that strongly urged its continuance. 1 However, for reasons that would require a good-sized history to explain, the educational use of sign language in the United States and in most countries declined. During most of the twentieth century, signing has been strictly prohibited in some schools, discouraged and neglected in many, and even if permitted to pupils in their out-of-class time, has been studiously ignored by teachers and staff in most schools for the deaf. Recently linguists and hociolinguists have joined the deaf-who of course never stopped using sign language--to insist that the natural language for interaction among human beings who cannot hear be given once again a central role in their education. A growing discontent with the low achievement of the average deaf child in school has also turned attention to sign language and to other forms of manual communication. As in any large movement (there are now almost 70, 000 pupils in schools reporting to the Annual Survey of Hearing Impaired Children and Youth 3 ), some of the issues may be confusing as well as confused, and even those engaged in the movement toward "total communication" may need a new perspective. Purpose. It is the purpose here to present sign language as a central fact in the life of deaf individuals and groups, and therefore as a focus for educational efforts. This will require looking at the relation of Sign to English--another central fact The Study of Sign Language in the lives of American deaf persons. Sign is used here as a short and pronounceable abbreviation for the proper name, American Sign Language, otherwise abbreviated ASL. Ameslan, with its half-dozen observed pronunciations, is a special socio-economic, class dialect of Sign which Fant has described. While sign languages generally and Sign in particular make excellent objects for scientific study--e.g. by anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists; the present intent is to treat Sign as a prime educational medium and as a language which in a true sense can make a deaf person both a sharer in general American culture and also a member of a special group with its own self-awareness and pride. To treat Sign in this way requires, first, to look at some of the different ways that languages are presented to the eye instead of to the ear. Second, we will examine bilingualism and its special place in the life and education of deaf persons. Third, we will look at ways for concerned teachers to apply research findings directly in their own work. And finally, teachers will be shown ways to ask and answer question of importance about Sign, i.e. to do practical research in the study of sign language for themselves. 1. Sight, Language, and Speech. Education for the deaf confronts a central fact: Sight instead of hearing is the sense which conveys language symbols to the person who cannot hear. In the history of systematic education of the deaf this fact has not always been faced squarely. The French pioneers, de l'pie and Sicard, in harmony with the empirical and scientific spirit of the Enlightenment, founded their teaching on this fact. Visibly distinct signals for French grammatical features were built into their programs of instruction . But even in de lI'pie's lifetime, Heinicke challenged the French approach, insisting that words and the ideas they stood for could never be presented inside the mind without sounds. The controversy, in letters between de lI'p4e and Heinicke,began in 1780, and Paris, Leipzig, Vienna--the whole intellectual world of Europe became involved. The decision of the Rector and Fellows of the Academy of Zurich in de 1'Epe'e's favor in 1783...