“ICH WEISS ES NICHT”: MENTALISIERUNGSFÄHIGKEITEN UND SPRACHE BEI PATIENTINNEN MIT PSYCHISCHEN STÖRUNGEN/ “I DON’T KNOW”: MENTALISATION SKILLS AND LANGUAGE IN PATIENTS WITH MENTAL DISORDERS

Abstract

According to the WHO, one in four people are affected by some form of mental disorder, including schizophrenia. In schizophrenia, disorganised speech is a leading cognitive symptom. As language can be considered as a reflection of thoughts, the analysis of the language of individuals with schizophrenia can provide useful insights into the mentalising abilities of these patients. Mentalising skills, mind-reading or mentalisation, known in psychiatry as Theory of Mind (ToM), refers to the ability and skill to conceptualise other people’s mental states and thus explain and predict their behaviour. The nature of patients’ linguistic dysfunction can be detected during different mentalising processes. In our paper we present the first results of a study that, as part of an interdisciplinary research project, investigates the mentalising abilities of schizophrenic patients from the perspective of language and communication. The primary aim of the present functional linguistic study is to describe and classify typical and recurrent linguistic patterns of patients with schizophrenia that are related to their mentalising capacities. The case study focuses on the use and different functions of the negative epistemic construction “I don’t know” in interviews with patients in the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Pécs. The research corpus of the case study comprises 20 structured patient interviews, which were digitally recorded and transcribed. The quantitative analysis of the corpus was conducted using Sketch Engine software. The qualitative analysis focused on the form, interactional structure and functions of “I don’t know”. The results show two forms, but at the same time a diverse syntactic and sequential embedding of the construction. On the discourse level, “I don’t know” could be assigned several functions, from literal meaning to the expression of uncertainty and avoidance strategies. The results related to “I don’t know” could help adequately interpret linguistic expressions associated with mental states by gaining insight into patients’ language use in more detailed pragmatic terms, thus increasing the therapeutic success.

Keywords

• schizophrenic speech
• theory of mind
• negative epistemic construction
• pragmatics
• conversation analysis