Professor of Linguistics

University of Mary Washington

Department of English, Linguistics, and Speech

1301 College Ave.

Fredericksburg, VA 22401

540.654.1548 (w)
540.654.1569 (fax)
ckakava[at]umw.edu

Ph.D., M.S. - Georgetown University
B.A. - National and Kapodistrian

University of Athens (Greece)

Expertise:
Discourse Analysis
Sociolinguistics
Language and Gender
Cross Cultural Communication
Greek Sociolinguistics
Applied Linguistics

Useful links

Special major

This page will provide some information that you may need such as my education, publications, referreed presentations, and courses I teach at the University of Mary Washington.

Let me introduce myself to you.  I was born and raised in Halkida, the capital of Evia, a Greek island in the Aegean sea.  I finished my BA in English and Greek at the University of Athens and taught English as a  Foreign Language for four years in several public and private Institutions in Greece.  I came to the US in 1987 to pursue my MS and PhD in Linguistics at Georgetown University. I specialized in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis under the direction of professors Ralph Fasold, Deborah Schiffrin, Roger Shuy, and Deborah Tannen (mentor). After receiving my Ph.D. in 1993, I spent a year at Princeton University as a Hannah Seeger Davis Post-doctoral Fellow in Hellenic Studies. In August 1994, I joined the faculty at Mary Washington College, and since  then I have been teaching Introduction to General Linguistics, Cross-Cultural Communication, Introduction to Sociolinguistics and Anthropological Linguistics, Language and Gender, and seminar topics such as Discourse Analysis, Language and Conflict, Power, Ideology, and Identity.  Depending on  the level and nature of the course and on my pedagogical goals, I use a combination of teaching approaches, and most of my courses are officially or unofficially Speaking Intensive. My research interests include language and conflict in family talk, ideology, identity, and power, and cross-cultural communication practices.