Program: Fellowships
Award Number: FA-52152
Name: Justin McBride
Home Address: 1714 Revard Ave., Pawhuska, OK 74056
Present Address: 698 Grandview Drive, PO Box 50, Kaw City, OK 74641
E-Mail Address: jmcbride@kawnation.com
PART I: AWARD TENURE EVALUATION
1. What did you do during the tenure of your award, and how does this compare with what you had planned to do when you applied?
Robert Rankin and I originally outlined three principal objectives for a multi-year Kaw language documentation project, summarized as follows: Compile known resources into single electronic database; translate the database into a series of multimedia resources; and provide a research-based preservation model for related languages. Each of these was further divided into two or more objective activities, often of an extremely complex nature. For instance, the primary audio processing activities associated with the first objective involved numerous and lengthy steps. After the identification and preliminary digitization of all extant recordings associated with the language, every fluent Kaw utterance was to be isolated from surrounding non-Kaw speech and saved as a separate sound file. These files—numbering approximately 20,000—were then to be described uniquely and cataloged in a separate database. While this task alone was expected to take two years, it was just one of nine activities associated with the first of three objectives. We ultimately arrived at the conclusion that all three objectives together would take roughly three years to complete. In the move from the project grant track to the fellowship track, we were only funded for the first of these three years. Consequently, only a portion of the project activities were completed during our award tenure. The order of and delegation of activities was moreover modified considerably.
I was able to accomplish a great deal of my share of the project work. Under the first objective, I designed a massive XML-based documentation website that served to organize and compile all subsequent project work. The website featured an abundance of text, image, and audio resources. The text included four-line interlinearizations of about half of the text collections of James Owen Dorsey, a single text of early twentieth century speaker Pete Taylor, and a single text of Dr. Rankin’s principal informant Maude Rowe with corresponding audio. The image resources included digital scans of two full boxes of Dorsey’s handwritten Kaw notes and Dhegiha comparative data. My extensive work on the audio resources resulted in the preliminary identification and compressed digital audio versions of Dr. Rankin’s entire 60-tape set of Kaw field recordings, and nearly 1,500 completely processed (isolated, individually saved, and cataloged with metadata) Kaw utterances—about 8% of the estimated total. For the second objective, I created one SMIL-based multimedia lesson for tribal members. For the third objective, my department, particularly my colleague Dr. Linda Cumberland, was responsible for enhancing Dr. Rankin’s IDD lexical data by way of English keyword indices and semantic and grammatical class notes, for both the technical and practical Kaw orthographies.
Dr. Rankin’s project work greatly expanded and complemented my own. His final report describes his contribution in much greater detail, but some of the key points include the following: Retranscription and ongoing analysis of most of his extensive field notes; laboratory analysis of vowel length, pitch, and nasality, in cooperation with Kansas University graduate student Wendy Herd; compilation and analysis of Dorsey’s text series, place name slips, and ethnobotanical slips; physical collection of all known Kaw language materials from the various archives in Washington, D.C., including works by Dorsey, Gatschet, Hewitt, Michelson, Morgan, Stubbs, and Turner; and the ongoing draft of a Kaw reference grammar. In the end, I am quite satisfied with the amount of work done on the project so far, but many of our initially outlined activities still remain incomplete.
2. Has either your understanding of your subject or your approach to it changed significantly as a result of the work conducted under your award? If so, in what way?
It is almost impossible to characterize the extent to which my understanding of the Kaw language has improved as a result of my NEH-funded work without offering some perspective. Before my documentation work began, very little about Kaw was known outside of a handful of living individuals. I had been teaching it to tribal members for nearly four years, and yet my understanding was probably comparable to that of a beginning student of some other language. This is no longer the case. My intense exposure to Kaw texts and audio in this past year has vastly elevated my knowledge of the intricacies of Kaw phonology, lexicon, and grammar. Moreover, I now have something of a general picture how language was used and how it changed among the last generations of speakers. In short, I can now speak with confidence and authority about the language. Of course, this has also affected my approach to teaching the language. I now see teaching Kaw as a means of bringing the most interested learners into the fold of research. Students will wet their feet with our typical pedagogy, assembling a toolkit for further investigation, and will then be introduced to what remains unclear or unanswered in the language. It is my belief that such an approach will eventually lead to an increased and more diverse understanding of the language, as well as its ultimate revitalization.
3. How has your award-supported work furthered your scholarly career? What are your publication plans?
My award-supported work has helped me launch a scholarly career, despite having come from outside of academia. Prior to my award tenure, I lacked the credibility to significantly impact the field of Siouan linguistics. The nature and quality of my work have now changed. I have learned a great deal, and can now speak with authority and confidence about the Kaw language. This can be demonstrated in my activities throughout the past year. For instance, I can now declare to have co-organized and hosted an international academic conference, authored and presented two scholarly papers with plans for a third, and engaged in countless peer-level discussions with new and established researchers in linguistics and anthropology on a broad range of topics. In short, this award has allowed me to join a much larger community of scholars.
In terms of publication, my immediate plans involve the completion and promotion of the XML-based Kaw language documentation website I developed during my award tenure. This site already contains the work completed in the project year, including thousands of compiled audio and text resources. When complete, it will also house a reference grammar, a full set of multimedia lessons, and numerous other materials of interest to researchers and language learners.
4. Does your award-supported work have implications for your teaching? Please provide titles if your research will contribute to new or revised courses.
My departmental colleagues and I teach at the tribal community level. Our students include everyone from preschool children to their parents, usually in the same class. For the most part, all of these students have been learning the same sorts of beginner level words and phrases. But the knowledge gleaned from this project has enabled us to begin development of much more advanced pedagogical materials. In just this past year, for instance, we have begun exploring the possibility of Oklahoma state accreditation for Kaw language classes at the high school level, and are currently in preliminary discussions with a local college for teaching Kaw language at the undergraduate level. Neither of these opportunities would have been possible without the work done on this award; there had simply not been enough reliable material available on which to base advanced lessons.
5. To what extent will you be able to continue work on the project supported by the award? What assistance, if any, will you receive for this from your employer or from other sources (including released time, research or secretarial assistance, etc., as well as award assistance?
I unfortunately will not be able to continue my work on the documentation objectives during the next year. My department was recently awarded a separate federal grant for the development of other sorts of Kaw language materials. I must oversee this grant in the absence of my departmental colleague Dr. Cumberland, who is leaving this year. However, as I do enjoy the tremendous support and backing of my tribal administration, it is my sincere hope that I will be able to resume my documentation activities full-time at some point after the close of the grant.
6. For Faculty Research Award recipients: are there other ways in which your award-supported work will further the educational mission of your institution?
Not applicable.
7. Expressed roughly in percentages, what proportion of the award period you spent:
(a) at your own institution or home?
95%
(b) at other locations in the U.S.?
5%
(c) at locations abroad?
0%
100%
Please specify the other locations:
Washington, D.C.:
National Anthropological Archives
National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian, Cultural Resource Center
National Archives
Billings, Montana:
Rocky Mountain College
Crow Agency, Montana:
Little Bighorn College
8. Did your employer contribute any additional funds for travel, supplies, research assistance, or other such ancillary purpose, to help you with your work under the award? If so, please indicate amounts.
The Kaw Nation contributed approximately $3,500 of funding over and above the sum of the award to defray the costs of travel and routine project expenses. They also provided my work space and benefits package and incurred all costs related thereto.
9. What is the sabbatical or similar leave policy at your place of employment?
I retained my regular full-time status at the Kaw Nation during my award tenure. The tribe has no policy on sabbatical leave and offers nothing of a similar nature beyond Family & Medical leave. However, all regular full-time employees enjoy several varieties of authorized leave. These include annual, sick, administrative, military, jury/court, maternity, funeral, and holiday leaves, as well as compensatory time (overtime taken as leave) and leave without pay.
PART II: AWARD TENURE DATES
1. When did you begin and end your award tenure?
Began July 2005 Ended June 2006
(month/year) (month/year)
If the length of your actual tenure was shorter than that specified in the official notice of action that accompanied the NEH award letter, the Endowment will request, on a pro rata basis, appropriate repayment.
Not applicable.
2. For Faculty Research Award recipients: if the total amount of full or half time spent on your project during your award tenure differed from that indicated in your acceptance form, describe and explain the difference in the space below.
Not applicable.