Different Phenomena in Language Pathologies. A Case-Study of Schizophrenic Subjects

Language and schizophrenia is not a recent topic: in the clinical sphere linguistic and cognitive phenomena have constituted a significant part of the criteria used in identifying the schizophrenic symptomatology, while language has often been used as a comprehensive metaphor for the pathology. In any clinical treatment of this pathology the classification of linguistic phenomena cannot be ignored. Yet all too often this classification has been approached without any attempt to coordinate the specific spheres of competence. It is not difficult to see that progress in linguistic studies has failed to lead to a corresponding advance in the description and classification of the linguistic phenomena produced by schizophrenic patients. Similarly, the advances in studies of spoken language do not yet seem to have had any significant effect on the analysis of the pathology. The confrontation between linguistic and clinical expertise, based on the conviction that it is not only opportune but indispensable to subject patients and also the phenomena to a differentiated analysis, represents at this point a working hypothesis rich in possible developments.