Language and Schizophrenia

✍ Scribed by Janusz Wróbel

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 148
• Series: Linguistic and Literary Studies in Eastern Europe 33
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book investigates the functioning of linguistic phenomena, especially in the area of semantics and pragmatics of the language of schizophrenics. By making semantics and pragmatics the primary objects of this work, the author departs from the traditional approach of those psycholinguistic and psychiatric studies which aim to explain how the language of schizophrenics differs from the common language. This book, on the other hand, basically attempts to provide the reason why this language differs. The shift from description to explanation required the development of a new psycholinguistic method and the assertion that schizophrenia is a semiotic illness. The remarkable humanistic value of this book lies in the sensitivity of the author's approach to the mentally ill and in the concept that the language of schizophrenics is understandable, and consequently, that it is possible to actually understand the sick person. The social consequences of this are of immense significance for those attempting to communicate, whether as doctors or family members, with the one in 100 persons who use schizophrenic language. Dr. Wróbel's interpretation of so-called schizophrenic illumination, in which the curtain is torn, behind which the essence of things is cancelled and the schizophrenic reaches the heart of the meaning of everything, numbers among the most apt descriptions of this unusual psychopathological phenomenon. Z. Ryn, Professor of Psychiatry

✦ Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Linguistics and Psychiatry Toward the Language of Schizophrenia
   1.1. Classical, classificational attitude
   1.2. Nonorthodox attitudes
2. The Schizophrenic Entangled in the Speech Act: A Pragmatic View of the Sources of Schizophrenics' Communication Failure
   2.1. Introduction
   2.2. Emotion as substitute for calculation and manipulation in schizophrenics' selection of linguistic means
   2.3. The role of expectation in the language communication of schizophrenics
   2.4. The deictical level in schizophrenics' utterances
   2.5. A view of the receiver of schizophrenics' messages
   2.6. The schizophrenic silence
   2.7. Conclusions
3. The Schizophrenic Entangled in Meanings: Part I: The Relation Between Denotation and Connotation in the language of Schizophrenics
   3.1. Introduction
   3.2. Fundamentals of semantic approach
   3.3. The material
   3.4. Conclusions
   3.5. Interpretation
   3.6. Further examples of the use of semic analysis of the semantic peculiarities in schizophrenic language
   3.7. Conclusions
4. The Schizophrenic Entangled in Meanings: Part II: The Role of Harmony, Symmetry and Rhythm in the Schizophrenic's Organization of Utterances
   4.1. Stereotypes of the human condition in the utterances of the schizophrenic G based on the example of the conditions of persons forming in G's utterances the lexical field FRIENDS
   4.2. Schizophrenic harmony of opposites as a phenomenon of semantic symmetry
   4.3. The linguistic phenomenon of schizophrenic series
   4.4. Semantic systems of schizophrenics
   4.5. Conclusions
5. The Schizophrenic Entangled in the Sign: Schizophrenia as a Semiotic Illness
   5.1. The boundaries of language, the boundaries of the world: The role of language in perception of reality
   5.2. When everything has meaning: The schizophrenic overload of meanings
   5.3. When your thoughts are not your own: The interpenetration of the external and internal world in schizophrenia
   5.4 Conclusions
6. The nature of the linguistic sign in schizophrenia
   6.1. Introductory remarks
   6.2. Signifiant and Signifié
   6.3. Signifiant and Referent I
   6.4. Signifié I and Referent I
   6.5. Signifié and Signifié I
7. Common Language Versus the Language of Schizophrenics (17 Theses)

References
Index