ABSTRACT
The cognitivist approach considers schizophrenic language disturbances as not specific to language: schizophrenic speech is peculiar because some deficits in other faculties prevent the patient from using language in the right way. In a similar manner, philosophical psychiatry regards language as one of the ways the subject’s existential structure alteration reveals itself; if the schizophrenic employs language in a specific manner, it is because he exists in a specific manner. There is nothing specific to language in this case either; language is only hit by the shock wave of schizophrenia and reflects its existential features. Here, a different philosophical perspective is presented, according to which language contributes in an essential way to making schizophrenia what it is; in other words, according to this alternative view, schizophrenia is a disease of language, in the sense that it finds in language its natural fuel, something that feeds the disorder itself. This chapter analyses the way schizophrenic people play with language, are obsessed with language, regard it as a sacred object, and are trapped in an endless series of metalinguistic games; finally, it aims to show that schizophrenia has much to do with language and that it would be very hard to imagine this mental disorder without our linguistic nature.
