

Investigating discourse specificities in schizophrenic disorders
pp. 315-342
in: Manuel Rebuschi, Gerhard Heinzmann, Michel Musiol, Alain Trognon (eds), Interdisciplinary works in logic, epistemology, psychology and linguistics, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
The authors propose a pragmatic and dialogic models allowing to uncover, in the most objective way possible, the discontinuities found in verbal interactions between a schizophrenic patient and a normal interlocutor. We will then look at the potential relationship between these discontinuities and the syndrome's specificities, and at a more general level, we will discuss how they relate to the question of incoherence and thought disorders disorders. The model that we propose at this point in our investigation describes four clearly distinguishable types of discontinuity . These are compared empirically to some of the diagnostic and psychopharmacological specificities of the disorganized and paranoid syndromes. Our approach thus may have diagnostic power. This pragmatic approach to cognitive psychopathology allows us to contemplate the possibility of clarifying or even operationalizing the notion of formal thought disorders disorders.