LINGUIST List 17.2378
Wed Aug 23 2006
All: Obituary: Prof. Ben Tervoort (1920 - 2006), U. van Amsterdam
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Obituary: Prof. Ben Tervoort (1920 - 2006), U. van Amsterdam
Message 1: Obituary: Prof. Ben Tervoort (1920 - 2006), U. van Amsterdam
Date: 23-Aug-2006
From: Josep Quer <josep.querub.edu>
Subject: Obituary: Prof. Ben Tervoort (1920 - 2006), U. van Amsterdam
With sadness we must report the death of Professor Ben Tervoort, emeritusprofessor of Linguistics at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, TheNetherlands. Ben (29 May 1920 - 17 August 2006) was well known in the fieldof sign linguistics for his pioneering work on signing in deaf children. Asearly as 1953 he was awarded his Ph.D. at the Universiteit van Amsterdamfor his study of signed communication in a group of deaf children,published in English in 1961 under the title Esoteric Symbolism in theCommunication Behavior of Young Deaf Children. Thereby he laid the basisfor the study of signed languages both in the Netherlands andinternationally. He also did research in the USA and was awarded anhonorary doctorate by Gallaudet University in 1964. He was appointedprofessor of linguistics at the Universiteit van Amsterdam in 1966, withspecial responsibility for psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Ben wasan inspiring teacher – he loved to tell stories – and he stimulated hisstudents in their research on sign languages. Ben was one of the initiatorsof the research that led to the first dictionary of NGT (Sign Language ofThe Netherlands) in the early eighties and stimulated the organization ofan international conference in Noordwijk in 1985.
Although Ben retired in 1987, he remained involved with and committed todeaf issues for the rest of his life. He was given a special award for hisservices to the field of sign linguistics at TISLR 7 in 2000.
Ben started his academic career from within the Jesuit order. He left theorder in 1965 to marry and form a family. His work was characterized by aninsistence on the importance of inter-personal communication, which he sawas essential for good human relations. The sign linguistics field nowmisses one of its pioneers. We extend our condolences to his wife,Dieuwertje, and his three daughters.
(1975) Developmental features of visual communication: a psycholinguisticanalysis of deaf children's growth in communicative competence. AmericanElsevier, New York.
(1986) Signs of Life – Proceedings of the Second European Conference onSign Language Research. Publications of the General Linguistics Department,Universiteit van Amsterdam, No.50.
The Sign Language Linguistics Society board, August 23, 2006
Linguistic Field(s):
Not Applicable
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