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.