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Home Department of English People Cynthia Bernstein
Cynthia Bernstein

Cynthia Bernstein

Professor Emeritus

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cbernstn@memphis.edu
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Education

B.A., 1969, Cornell University
M.A., 1972, Texas A & M
Ph.D., 1987, Texas A & M

Academic Summary

After ten years at Auburn University, Cynthia Bernstein joined the University of Memphis faculty to teach linguistics in the M.A. and Ph.D. programs. Her research and teaching areas include the study of dialect variation, methods of gathering and interpreting linguistic data, and the use of linguistic tools to analyze literary and popular genres. Although born and raised in New York, she is particularly interested in ethnic varieties of English in the Southern United States.

Select Publications

  • Review of The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America, by Sandra Fox. Contemporary Jewry. To appear.
  • “American Jewish Summer Camps and Resorts: Language, Culture, and Identity.” Hillels of Memphis: On One Foot. April 21, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR2LirYSYTI
  • What Is Jewish English and Who Speaks It?” Hillels of Memphis: On One Foot, October 16, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfQmQ-ILh6E
  • "Lexical Features of Jewish English in the American South." New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South, edited by Michael D. Picone and Catherine Davies. University of Alabama Press, 2015, pp. 609-25.
  • “Jewish Language.” The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 5: Language, edited by Michael Montgomery and Ellen Johnson, University of North Carolina Press, 2007, pp. 88-90.
  • “Grammar, Changes In.” The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 5: Language, edited by Michael Montgomery and Ellen Johnson, University of North Carolina Press, 2007, pp. 137–40.
  • "Representing Jewish Identity through English." English and Ethnicity, edited by Jannina Brutt-Griffler and Catherine Evan Davies, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 107-30.
  • "More than Just Yada Yada Yada (Jewish English)." American Voices, edited by Walt Wolfram and Ed Ward, Wiley-Blackwell, 2006, pp. 251-7.
  • "Grammatical Features of Southern Speech: yall, might could, fixin to". English in the Southern United States, edited by Stephen J. Nagle and Sara L. Sanders, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 106-18.
  • "Misunderstanding the American South". American Speech, vol. 4, 2000, pp. 339-42.
  • Bernstein, Cynthia, and Robert Bernstein. "Phonological Innovation in East Texas: Different Samples, Similar Explanations." American Speech, vol. 73, 1998, pp. 44-56.
  • "Labov and Walatzky in Context." Journal of Narrative and Life History, vol. 7, 1997, pp. 45-52.
  • Bernstein, Cynthia, Thomas Nunnally, and Robin Sabino, eds. Language Variety in the South Revisited. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.
  • Bernstein, Cynthia, ed. The Text and Beyond: Essays in Literary Linguistics. University of Alabama Press, 1994.