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Pragmatics disorders and indirect reports in psychotic language

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Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology ((PEPRPHPS,volume 19))

Abstract

In this paper I deal with both direct and indirect reports. Direct reporting in schizophrenic discourse has to be interpreted in context and thus everything we say about direct reports involves elucidating the context of use and thus providing indirect reports of direct reports. The context includes the imaginary voice (an auditory hallucination) and a situation in which the patient makes complaints to institutional figures about his own situation. According to a series of recent and very important studies, psychotic language ‘disorders’ would manifest essentially schizophrenic patients’ pragmatic difficulties.

In this essay I look at some aspects of pragmatic schizophrenic difficulties, and the different forms that indirect reports in psychotic language can take. This study originates from psychopathological stories and from first-person clinical experiences. So, using numerous autograph materials (letters, denunciations, poetry, drawings, etc.) and a large number of interviews with dozens of psychotic subjects, I will try to examine the ‘disorders’ of schizophrenic language and paranoiac indirect reports. Autobiographic writings of the subjects, and their statements reveal the function and the communicative values of psychotic discourse. In the end, these forms of communication – even before being considered as disorders or deficits – constitute real forms of linguistic psychotic use and therefore are to be considered really important for pragmatic psychopathological research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As for the psychopathological and clinical characteristics of the Delusional Disorder or, exactly, of the nineteenth-century Paranoia described by Kraepelin (1899), see also: Bleuler 1912; Winokur 1977; APA 2013.

  2. 2.

    For more details on these studies see: Corcoran et al. 1995; Abu-Akel 1999; Langdon et al. 2002; Mazza et al. 2008; Mo et al. 2008; Gavilán, García-Albea 2011; Bosco et al. 2012; Norrick 2016; Wettstein 2016; Capone 2016a b c.

  3. 3.

    On the use of the word parresìa, on its relations with tellingthe truth, and on the figure of parresiastes in ancient Greece, see: Foucault 1985.

  4. 4.

    The expressions in italics of examples (4) and (5) are voices in Sicilian dialect.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Science, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Antonino Bucca

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  1. Antonino Bucca
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Correspondence to Antonino Bucca .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Science, University of Messina, Barcellona PG ME, Italy

    Alessandro Capone

  2. Departament Lògica, Porta 404, 4th Fl, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Manuel García-Carpintero

  3. Department of Cognitive Science, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Alessandra Falzone

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Bucca, A. (2019). Pragmatics disorders and indirect reports in psychotic language. In: Capone, A., García-Carpintero, M., Falzone, A. (eds) Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_22

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