Susan M. Fitzmaurice (born September 1959) is a British linguist. Since 2006, she has been professor and chair of English linguistics at the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

as well as vice-president and head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She works on the historical linguistics of English, specialising in historical pragmatics, socio-linguistics and computational linguistics. In 2020, she was elected president of the

Philological Society The Philological Society, or London Philological Society, is the oldest learned society in Great Britain dedicated to the study of language as well as a registered Charitable organization, charity. The current Society was established in 1842 to ...

Academic career

Fitzmaurice received her Ph.D. from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1987. From 1984 until 1986, Fitzmaurice was lecturer in linguistics at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

. Thereafter, she moved to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and became University Lecturer in English at the

and a fellow of St Catharine's College, where she worked from 1987 until 1995. She was appointed Professor of English at

Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public research university based in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was founded in 1899 as the final public university established in the Arizona Territory, 13 years before Arizona was admitted as the 48th state. ...

in 1995 and stayed there until 2005 before moving to the

Research

Fitzmaurice was the

principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

on the project ''Linguistic DNA'', funded by the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts an ...

Selected publications

*''The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach''. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. *''Business and Official Correspondence: Historical Investigations''. Bern: Peter Lang, 2006. (with Marina Dossena) *''Methods in historical pragmatics''. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007. (with Irma Taavitsainen) *''Studies in the History of the English Language IV: Empirical and Analytical Advances in the Study of English Language Change''. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. (with Donka Minkova) *''Politeness in Nineteenth-Century Europe''. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2019. (with Annick Paternoster)

References

External links

Institutional website
1959 births Living people Alumni of the University of Cambridge Linguists from the United Kingdom Women linguists Women academics {{UK-linguist-stub