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Title:
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Aspects of the Theory of Core, Central and Interface Pragmatics in the Language of Chronic Schizophrenics
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Author:
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Sara Meilijson
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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Tel-Aviv University
, School of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities
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Degree Date:
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1999
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Pragmatics
Neurolinguistics
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Director(s):
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Asa Kasher
Avner Elizur
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Abstract:
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Language disorder has long been considered a diagnostic indicator of Schizophrenia. This study examines the language of 43 patients diagnosed with chronic Schizophrenia, from the theoretical framework of modular Pragmatics of language as described by Kasher.
A review of the literature shows that the study of language and Schizophrenia underwent a paradigmatic shift similar to the study of normal language, from the level of word units through sentence cohesion and finally to the level of Pragmatics of language - speech acts in particular - and to the discourse unit. The modularity of pragmatic knowledge hypothesis is applied to describe some types of pragmatic knowledge and explain how each type is manifested in the schizophrenic speaker/hearer.
Two tools of assessment where chosen to test the pragmatic abilities of the 43 experimental chronic schizophrenic subjects, mixed anxiety depression control subjects, brain hemispheric damage comparison subjects and normal subjects.
(i) The Pragmatic Protocol of Prutting and Kirchner, based on thirty pragmatic parameters, was chosen as the method of analysis to attain a general profile of pragmatic abilities. (ii) A Neuropragmatic Battery of tests was developed based on Kasher's theory of modular Pragmatics. These tests assess verbal and non-verbal Basic Speech Acts and Conversational Implicatures.
It was found that schizophrenic subjects exhibit a high degree of inappropriateness in all areas of pragmatic abilities compared to the other groups, with a specific and differentiated profile. The Pragmatic Protocol applied to the 86 conversations (each subject conversed with a familiar and a non-familiar partner) yielded by CART clustering analysis five distinct and meaningful parameter clusters, ordered by decreasing degree of inappropriateness: Topic, Speech Acts, Turn-taking, Lexical and Non-verbal. After removing the confounding effect of subject heterogeneity, correlation analysis showed that the Topic, Lexical and Non-verbal clusters appeared to be independent of each other, while the Speech Acts cluster correlated with all the others. Clustering analysis of the 43 schizophrenic subjects produced three distinct groups: Almost Normal, Lexically Impaired and Interactionally Impaired.
Schizophrenic subjects were found to perform poorly in all tests of Basic Speech Acts, with highly significant interaction of Basic Speech Act (Question, Assertion, Request, Command) versus Mode (verbal and non-verbal) and highly significant global differences between modes. The tests of Conversational Implicatures (Quantity, Quality, Relevance, Manner) assess the correct identification and solution (task) of a problem posed for each implicature, in each of verbal and non-verbal mode. Schizophrenic subjects showed a high percentage of incorrect responses in all implicatures, with significant 3-way interaction of Implicature versus Mode versus Task, and very significant 2-way interaction of Mode versus Task.
The language of chronic schizophrenic patients, as measured by all three tools, is impaired at all levels of pragmatic knowledge (Core, Central and Interface Pragmatics), differently from the other groups.
The following issues are discussed in the study: modularity of language, diagnostic classification, comparison with brain damage, pragmatic competence of patients with chronic Schizophrenia, as well as methodological and rehabilitation implications.
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