He initially studied music and clarinet at Brno conservatoire, but later his keen interest in languages brought him to study English, German and Czech at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University. In 1970 he became an Assistant Professor of the Department of English and American Studies at the faculty. He was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor at Charles University in Prague in 1981 and to Full Professor at Masaryk University in Brno in 1992. Apart from Masaryk University in Brno, he also taught at Silesian University in Opava and at the University of Ostrava (both in the Czech Republic), and at University of Prešov (Slovakia).
He was a disciple and close collaborator of Professor Jan Firbas and together with him a lead investigator of a theory of Information Structure of language called Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP), inspired by the work of Vilém Mathesius. He wrote many papers on the topic, two monographs[1][2] and 50 encyclopedic entries describing FSP.[3] His most important contribution to the development of the theory of Functional Sentence Perspective was its application to the subclausal level.
Kavka, S. J.: “Foreword” IN M. Černý, J. Chamonikolasová, S. J. Kavka and E. Klímová (Eds.): New Chapters in Functional Syntax, Ostrava: University of Ostrava, 2011, pp. 7–8
↑Diatheme (A study in thematic elements, their contextual ties, thematic progressions and scene progressions based on a text from Ælfric), Brno: Masaryk University, 1981
↑Kapitoly z funkční syntaxe [Chapters from functional syntax], Prague: Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1989
↑In Encyklopedický slovník češtiny [Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Czech Language], Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2002. Шаблон:ISBN
