ABSTRACT
Language and speech in schizophrenia have been studied more than any other feature. The things that schizophrenic patients say can have all the bizarreness of the positive symptoms, hallucinations and delusions, but, unlike these symptoms, can be studied directly. Some schizophrenic patients say things that are barely comprehensible, but very fascinating. It is easy to believe that, if we could understand what they are saying, we would also understand “schizophrenia” (see Example 6.1)
Schizophrenic speech can also be deviant without being incomprehensible. Table 6.1 lists the deviant aspects of language most frequently observed in Nancy Andreasen’s classic study of language and communication in psychotic patients (Andreasen, 1979).
