VERBAL HESITATIONS IN MANDARIN SCHIZOPHRENICS' SPONTANEOUS SPEECH

• Main Authors: Chin-Yu Chen, 陳金佑
• Other Authors: John Kwock-Ping Tse
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1999
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/73446804457184878724

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 語言學研究所 === 87 === ABSTRACT Research on schizophrenics' (SZ henceforth) thought disorder has shown that SZ's hesitation phenomena are believed to be different from those of normal subjects (Manschreck et al. 1985; Alpert et al. 1994; etc.). This study is aimed at examining the verbal hesitations in the spontaneous speech of Mandarin schizophrenics in a picture description task based on three hesitant indicators: Repeats, Repairs, and False Starts, and the results are compared with those of a smaller sample of normal subjects. The statistical data indicate that schizophrenics tend to have produced comparatively more Repeats and False Starts but fewer Repairs than do normal subjects. In the picture description task, SZs preferred to use the Repeat strategy to help retain the flow of speech and to forsake the utterance when frustrated with concept formulations or word findings. Compared with normal subjects, schizophrenics repeated relatively more morphemes and phrases but fewer words , and more content than function the words were found in word repeats. The findings contradict those in normals investigated in the present study and in Maclay & Osgood (1959): Repeats are most frequent (71%) of a single word and involve in more function words than lexical words. It is suspected that these deviations in SZ's speech may contribute to an impression of repetitiousness on the part of the listeners. Besides, SZs are found to use more correction repairs than normal subjects though they produced comparatively fewer repairs than did normals. This denotes that more trouble sources, either inappropriate or wrong (at least SZs thought they were), were produced by SZ. Above all, most results attest the explanations proposed for repetitiousness in SZ language, a notable feature observed by Blueler (Manschreck 1985).