Schizofrene symptom og splitta sinn. Kritiske metonymi- og metaforanalysar av fagtermar knytte til diagnosen schizofreni i skandinaviske lærebøker i psykiatri

Abstract

This thesis investigates the use of the psychiatric terms schizofreni (‘schizophrenia’) and schizofren (‘schizophrenic’) in Scandinavian psychiatric expert language by means of Cognitive Linguistic theories of metaphor and metonymy. I use metaphor and metonymy analyses as a basis for critical discussions of the ways in which the terms are used in psychiatric expert language. My material consists of Scandinavian (i.e. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish) textbooks on psychiatry from three time periods: c. 1900, when the term for the disorder was dementia praecox, c. 1950, when schizofreni had fully replaced dementia praecox, and the period after 2000, i.e. the text books that are currently used in the education of physicians. My results indicate that metonymy plays a vital role in psychiatric expert language, and that some forms of metonymic use of psychiatric expert terms may lead to unfortunate conceptualizations and hence to stigmatization of patients. I have also found indications that the term schizofreni (from Greek skhizein ‘to split’ + phrēn ‘mind’) may still be alive as a metaphor in the psychiatric language community, inasmuch as the disorder is still referred to and therefore potentially also conceptualized in terms of the source domain SPLITTING. This study provides a deeper understanding of the role of metonymy in expert language and of the mechanisms contributing to the stigmatizing potential of some linguistic constructions.