The Ins and Outs of ‘Schizophrenia’: Considering Diagnostic Terms as Ordinary Linguistic Expressions

AbstractDiagnostic terms in psychiatry like ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘bipolar disorder’ are deeply contested in the professional community, by mental health activists and the public. In this paper, we provide a theoretical framework for considering diagnostic terms as ordinary linguistic expressions and illustrate this approach by a corpus linguistic analysis of ‘schizophrenia.’ Our aim is to show how a focus on language itself can inform current and future debates about psychiatric terminology and provide new insights on relevant processes concerning their actual usage and change over time. We hope that this contributes to enhan cing mutual understanding between different discourse spheres and stakeholders.

Source: Journal of Medical Humanities - January 30, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research