The Diachronic Development of Consciousness and Language through History: A Psycholinguistic Investigation of Language Use in Schizophrenia

Abstract

The aim of this research work is to investigate how schizophrenic patients at Tlemcen psychiatry display an unusual range of linguistic behaviour. It relies on the use of a number of research tools where data were collected qualitatively and quantitatively. The results revealed that patients with an altered state of consciousness characterizing Schizophrenia, do exhibit tangentiality, alogia, neologisms, loosening of associations, word salad, derailment. Consequently, these verbal behaviours represent a degradation of the faculty of language which gives access to consciousness.