Pragmatics disorders and indirect reports in psychotic language

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.