Professor Neil Bermel

BA (Yale), MA, PhD (Berkeley)

School of Languages, Arts and Societies

Professor of Slavonic Languages and Linguistics

Professor Neil Bermel 2025 Profile Photo
Profile picture of Professor Neil Bermel 2025 Profile Photo
n.bermel@sheffield.ac.uk
2.40, Jessop West

Full contact details

Professor Neil Bermel
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
2.40
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

A native of New York, I studied Russian at school and university, and picked up Czech in graduate school as a secondary interest that has gradually become my primary one. My research has centred primarily on linguistic topics, looking at how speakers handle variation between and among forms in inflectional morphology. This involves using language corpora (large-scale text databases) as well as offline questionnaires tapping into the linguistic instincts of native speakers.  

I came to Sheffield in 1996 as lecturer in Czech language and linguistics and have served terms as Head of Russian and Slavonic Studies (2007-2009, 2016-17) and Head of the School of Languages and Cultures (2009-2014, 2021-2022).

When not engaged in weighty academic pursuits, I can often be found taking long but not overly strenuous walks through Sheffield or the Derbyshire countryside.

Research interests

My research has centred on variation in grammar and form in Czech and Russian, but has extended into other areas of language culture, including language regulation and planning and management of multilingual interactions. Currently it has four major strands:

  1. Methods of evaluating variation in language, including the use of questionnaires, tests and corpora (for more information about current work see our major AHRC-sponsored project , involving collaborators at seven partner universities; for previous work on this see our );
  2. Processes of formal and informal regulation of language. I am particularly interested in the intersection between language usage and language regulation;
  3. Linguistic landscapes and language management at Czech heritage sites, which incorporates work with student researchers and translators, and impact work with partners in the Czech Republic (for more information see the ).
  4. Translation of contemporary Czech literature: I have translated two novels by the Czech author Pavel Kohout, a volume of short stories by Daniela Fischerov谩, and Helga's Diary, an autobiographical account by Holocaust survivor Helga Weiss.
Publications

Books

  • Bermel N (2007) . Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Bermel N (2007) Linguistic Authority, Language Ideology, and Metaphor: The Czech Orthography Wars. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Bermel N (2000) Register variation and language standards in Czech.
  • Bermel N (1997) Context and the Lexicon in the Development of Russian Aspect. Univ of California Press.

Edited books

  • Linn A, Bermel N & Ferguson G (Eds.) (2015) . Germany: Walter de Gruyter.

Journal articles

  • Milin P, Bermel N & Blevins JP (2024) . Cognitive Linguistics, 35(2), 167-176.
  • Bermel N, Knittl L, Alldrick M & Nikolaev A (2024) . Cognitive Linguistics, 35(2), 177-219.
  • Bermel N, Knittl L & Nikolaev A (2023) . Word Structure, 16(2-3), 258-283.
  • Bermel N & Knittl L (2023) . Na拧e 艡e膷, 106(5), 247-274.
  • Bermel N & Brown D (2023) . Word Structure, 16(2-3), 147-153.
  • Nikolaev A & Bermel N (2023) . Word Structure, 16(2-3), 206-232.
  • Nikolaev A & Bermel N (2022) . Cognitive Linguistics, 33(3), 585-621.
  • Bermel N, Knittl L & Russell J (2018) . Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 14(2), 197-231.
  • Bermel N, Knittl L & Russell J (2015) . Russian Linguistics, 39(3), 283-308.
  • Bermel N (2015) . Russian Linguistics, 39(3), 275-282.
  • Bermel N, Knittl L & Russell J (2015) From standard to norm through the lens of corpora and native speakers. Prace Filologiczne(LXVII), 21-43.
  • Bermel N (2015) IN THE WORKS OF ENGLISH?. SLOVO A SLOVESNOST, 76(3), 238-240.
  • Bermel N (2015) English at work: A report from the conference "English in Business and Commerce: Interactions and Policies", Prague, March 22鈥23, 2014. Slovo A Slovesnost, 76(3), 238-240.
  • Bermel NH, Knittl L & Russell J (2014) Absolutn铆 a proporcion谩ln铆 frekvence v 膶NK ve sv臎tle v媒zkumu morfosyntaktick茅 variace v 膷e拧tin臎 . Na拧e 艡e膷, 97(4-5), 216-227.
  • Bermel NH (2012) . Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 8.2, 241-276.
  • Bermel N & Knittl L (2012) . Russian Linguistics, 36(1), 91-119.
  • Bermel N (2010) On the alleged Czech diglossia in the contemporary world. Slovo A Slovesnost, 71(1), 5-30.
  • Bermel N (2010) O tzv. 膷esk茅 diglosii v sou膷asn茅m sv臎t臎. Slovo a Slovesnost, 71(1), 5-30.
  • Rogozov V & Bermel N (2009) . BMJ Online, 339(7735), 1420.
  • Rogozov V & Bermel N (2009) Auto-appendectomy in the Antarctic: case report.. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 339.
  • Bermel NH (2008) Pravidla jako cukr nebo bi膷? Pravopis v 膶esk茅m n谩rodn铆m korpusu. Na拧e 艡e膷, 91(1-2), 1-12.
  • Bermel N (2008) Pravidla jako cukr nebo bi膷? Pravopis v 膶esk茅m n谩rodn铆m korpusu: 1. 膷谩st. Na拧e 艠e膷, 91(1), 1-12.
  • Bermel N (2008) Pravidla jako cukr nebo bi膷? Pravopis v 膶esk茅m n谩rodn铆m korpusu: 2. 膷谩st. Na拧e 艠e膷, 91(2), 57-67.
  • Bermel N (2004) 'Celestial Harmonies'. NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 13-13.
  • Bermel N & Porter R (2003) . World Literature Today, 77(1), 149-149.
  • Bermel N (2003) The Czech language: Foundations of the language structure, past and present. SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW, 81(1), 99-100.
  • Bermel N & Fronek J (2003) . The Slavic and East European Journal, 47(1), 152-152.
  • Bermel N & Paral V (2002) . The Slavic and East European Journal, 46(3), 613-613.
  • Bermel N (2001) . Slavic Review, 60(3), 615-616.
  • Bermel N (2001) 'Two Murders in My Double Life'. NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 37-37.
  • Bermel N (2001) 'City Sister Silver'. NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 24-24.
  • Bermel N (2001) St艡铆d谩n铆 k贸du '膷i m铆拧en铆 jazykov媒ch prost艡dku'? K popisu dialogu v 膷esk茅 beletrii. Na拧e 艠e膷, 84(1), 16-30.
  • Bermel N & Gammelgaard K (2000) . The Slavic and East European Journal, 44(2), 354-354.
  • Bermel N (1998) A geography of case semantics: The Czech dative and the Russian instrumental. Russian Linguistics, 22(1), 131-136.
  • Bermel N (1998) . Translation Review, 55(1), 6-11.
  • Bermel N (1995) . Russian Linguistics, 19(3), 333-348.

Book chapters

  • Bermel N (2023) , Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires (pp. 114-139). Routledge
  • Bermel N (2023) , Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires (pp. 114-139).
  • Bermel NH & Knittl L (2018) In Sherman T & Nekvapil J (Ed.), English in Business and Commerce: Interactions and Policies (pp. 194-228). De Gruyter Mouton
  • Bermel N, Knittl L & Russell J (2017) Still on the brink: the productivity of Czech nominative plural desinences In Makarova A, Dickey S & Divjak D (Ed.), Each Venture a New Beginning Studies in Honor of Laura A. Janda (pp. 193-210). Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers.
  • Bermel NH (2014) In Arokay J, Gvozdanovic J & Miyajima D (Ed.), Divided Languages? Diglossia, Translation and the Rise of Modernity in Japan, China, and the Slavic World (pp. 21-37). Springer Science & Business Media
  • Bermel N (2014) , Transcultural Research 鈥 Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context (pp. 21-37). Springer International Publishing
  • Bermel NH & Hebal-Jezierska M (2011) Frequency and oppositions in corpus-based research into morphological variation In Konopka M, Kubczak J, Mair C, Sticha F & Wassner U (Ed.), Grammatik und Korpora 2009 (pp. 373-388). BoD 鈥 Books on Demand

Conference proceedings

  • Bermel NH, Knittl L & Russell JM (2018) . Taming the Corpus: From inflection and lexis to interpretation. Providence, USA, 8 April 2016 - 8 April 2016.
Research group

Current PhD Students

  •  Zihan Chen
  • Lukas Kruchna
  • Mohammed Alshahrani

Previous PhD Students

  • Jonathan Israel Escobar Farf谩n, A Corpus-based Study of Nahuatl Contemporary Writing: Investigating a Continuum for Language Planning, awaiting viva
  • Fadhel Shalal, The Russian suffix -k(a): Between Inflection and Derivation, completed 2018
  • Dario Le膷i膰, Competing Forms in the Croatian Inflection System, completed 2017
  • Teresa Wigglesworth-Baker, Language Policy and Russian-titular Bilingualism in Post-Soviet Tatarstan, completed 2015
  •  Marie Sanders, Changes in Czech Vocabulary Against the Background of Socio-political Changes from the 1980s to the Present, completed 2009
  • James Wilson, Moravians in Prague: A Sociolinguistic Study of Dialect Accommodation in the Czech Republic, completed 2007

I am interested in supervising postgraduate research on:

  • Topics relating to the morphology of Slavonic languages, especially involving the use of corpora or experiments with a usage-based focus;
  • Language culture, language regulation/planning and written languages, both in Slavonic and more broadly; and
  • Literary translation, with a focus on the Slavonic world
Teaching interests

I have taught modules on the structure of Russian and Czech and currently teach on modules to add a linguistic dimension to cultural studies of those language communities. Other teaching concerns the siting of languages in multilingual settings and the narratives told about them: the European Union, Britain and the Russian Federation. 

I maintain an active interest in language teaching methods and practices:

  • Co-author Ilona Ko艡谩nov谩 and I created the  and , which is an extensive and comprehensive B1-level course in the Czech language oriented around a communicative core (rather than purely focused on grammar topics).
  • An ongoing project on , conceived and carried out with Lud臎k Knittl, has involved students in translation and in research into multilingualism.
  • Together with primary author Lud臎k Knittl, I played a role in designing our final year  and our internal History of the Czech Lands website and course.
  • I have also led on internal initiatives to examine our interface with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and to map the scope of projects and teaching within the school with a community and external engagement dimension.
Teaching activities
  • LAS146 Russian and Czech in the Age of Empire and Beyond
  • LAS2153 Euro-visions: Imagining and Questioning Europe
  • LAS2154 (Post-)Soviet Eurasia since 1900: Revolutions and Reactions
  • LAS3102/3104 Czech Proficient I/II
Professional activities and memberships

External institutional reviews and advisory boards:

鈥&苍产蝉辫;, Advisory Board member, 2017-2020
鈥&苍产蝉辫;, Advisory Board member, 2016-2019, and AB chair, 2016-2017
鈥&苍产蝉辫;, Panel 12 鈥 Institutional review of institutes of language and literature, 2015, panel member and report co-ordinator for a panel institute
鈥 Czech National Corpus Institute, Institutional review, external assessor, 2013
鈥 Czech Academy of Sciences, , Institutional review, panel member, 2010

Editorship:

鈥 Associate Editor of the , 2016-

Membership of editorial boards:

鈥&苍产蝉辫;, 2013-.
鈥&苍产蝉辫; [A Czech journal of corpus linguistics, published by the Czech Language Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences], 2010-
鈥&苍产蝉辫;, 2008-.
鈥&苍产蝉辫; [a journal of general linguistics, published by the Linguistics Association of the Czech Republic], 2006-.
鈥&苍产蝉辫; [Czech linguistics, published by the Czech Language Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2009-.
鈥&苍产蝉辫; [literature, language and translation studies, Department of Czech Literature, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Charles University, Prague], 2004-2019.
鈥&苍产蝉辫; [language of quasi-native speaker learners, e-journal, University of California, Los Angeles], 2003-2020.
鈥&苍产蝉辫; [literary and linguistic studies, Opole, Poland], 2001-.

External examining of PhD theses:

鈥 Charles University, Prague, PhD (Mathematical Linguistics), 2018
鈥 Charles University, Prague, PhD (Czech Language), 2017
鈥 Charles University, Prague, PhD (Corpus Linguistics), 2015
鈥 University of Newcastle, PhD (Creative Writing/Literature), 2014
鈥 University of Leeds, PhD (Slavic/Applied Linguistics/Computing), 2013
鈥 University of Surrey, PhD (Polish/Linguistics), 2014-15
鈥 University of Oxford, confirmation of PhD status (Russian Linguistics), 2003
鈥 Trinity College, Dublin, PhD (Translation), 2002

External examining of taught courses:

鈥 University of Bristol, BA/MA (Czech studies), 2015-2019
鈥 University of Durham, BA Russian Studies, 2009-2013
鈥 University of Oxford, MPhil (Slavonic Studies), 2002, 2008-2009; BA (Czech with Slovak), 2001-2003
鈥 University of Surrey, BA courses in Russian, 2006-2010
鈥 University of Glasgow, BA/MA (courses and modules in Czech and Central European studies), 2003-2007

Awards

鈥 Awarded the Silver Medal of Jan Masaryk (Czech Embassy, London) for services to British-Czech relations, 2021

Links

Feast and Famine Project