Michel Musiol

Investigating Discourse Specificities in Schizophrenic Disorders

The authors propose a pragmatic and dialogic models allowing to uncover, in the most objective way possible, the discontinuities found in verbal interactions between a schizophrenic patient and a normal interlocutor. We will then look at the potential relationship between these discontinuities and the syndrome’s specificities, and at a more general level, we will discuss how they relate to the question of incoherence and thought disorders disorders. The model that we propose at this point in our investigation describes four clearly distinguishable types of discontinuity . These are compared empirically to some of the diagnostic and psychopharmacological specificities of the disorganized and paranoid syndromes. Our approach thus may have diagnostic power. This pragmatic approach to cognitive psychopathology allows us to contemplate the possibility of clarifying or even operationalizing the notion of formal thought disorders disorders.

Verbal Interaction Structures and Repetition's Functions: A Comparison of Exchanges Between Adults and Severely Disabled Adolescents or Young Children

This article describes a study in which conversation analysis was used to examine verbal interactions between caregivers and severely disabled adolescents or young children. It focused on the phenomenon of repetition, which seems to be the basis of the mutual-understanding process. We compared dialogue structures containing repetitions in the two corpora. To analyze the pragmatic functions of repetitions, we used the categorization scheme developed previously. The results showed that the structure of the transactions was directly linked to the repetitions function, which was the organizing principle of the transactions in most cases. However, in the disabled adolescents corpus the function of multiple repetitions within the same transaction could not be interpreted using the traditional categorization scheme. We interpreted this new function as a more basic function that facilitates the emergence of mutual understanding during conversations between caregivers and severely disabled young people.

How do adults use repetition? A comparison of conversations with young children and with multiply-handicapped adolescents.

The aim of this research is to compare the types and functions of repetitions in two different corpora, one constituted of verbal interactions between adults and multiply-handicapped adolescents, the other between adults and young children of the same mental age as the adolescents. Our overall aim is to observe whether the communicative (linguistic and pragmatic) behaviour of adults varies according to the interlocutor and, if it does vary, in what ways. The main results show that adults do not use repetition strategy with the same aims according to the interlocutor. When interacting with a child, repetitions form part of a strategy of linguistic ‘tutoring’ which allow the child to take on board progressively more complex linguistic constructions; it also enriches exchanges from a pragmatic point of view. On the other hand, when adults communicate with multiply-handicapped adolescents, their main aim is the maintaining of dialogue.