Eliza Kitis holds an MA in Theoretical Linguistics, University of Essex, and a  Ph.D. in Philosophy of Language, University of Warwick, UK. She is Professor of Linguistics at the School of English, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. She studied initially in Greece, where she got a BA in English Language and Literature (recipient of state studentship IKY on merit during all years of her studies), and during her residence in UK (1971-80) she obtained her other two degrees. Her 1982 University of Warwick Ph.D. thesis (under David Holdcroft's supervision) Problems connected with the notion of Implicature was supported by a three-year major state studentship awarded on merit by the Department of Education and Science, UK. The thesis is a major critique of Grice's Program of Logic and Conversation. The notion of conversational implicature was redefined in terms of intentionality and the principle of relevance, which was identified as dominant in this type of implicature and in communication. Many instances of Grice's conversational implicature were found to be contextual assumptions ordinarily surrounding speech-events, often explainable in terms of knowledge frames and scripts. It was argued that the notion of frame played a paramount role in communication and that implicature  had to be 'liberated' from such contextual assumptions. Conventional implicature was also discussed and criticized. The thesis can claim a pioneering role (very early in the day), not only in positing the maxim of relevance as the major determinant of implicature, but also in showing how insights from various trends emerging at the time in other disciplines can be brought to bear on the analysis of implicature and on pragmatics in general. The thesis uses concepts and tools from the developing fields at the time of cognitive science (e.g., frames, scripts) and conversation analysis (ethnomethodology).

Eliza Kitis’ teaching and research reflect her special interests in semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis as well as CDA.

At the Department of English, Aristotle University she introduced core courses such as intros in linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis (see e-blackboard at the University's site). She also offered courses on connectives, discourse markers and subordinators at graduate level at other Departments.

She spent quite a few semesters and academic years at various Universities in UK (Leeds [one year], Cambridge [two semesters], UCL) and a year teaching in Ohio, Kent State University. Currently, she divides her time between Thessaloniki and London.