Can delusions be understood linguistically?

Abstract

Delusions are widely believed to reflect disturbed cognitive function, but the nature of this remains elusive. The “un-Cartesian” cognitive-linguistic hypothesis maintains (a) that there is no thought separate from language, that is, there is no distinct mental space removed from language where “thinking” takes place; and (b) that a somewhat broadened concept of grammar is responsible for bestowing meaning on propositions, and this among other things gives them their quality of being true or false. It is argued that a loss of propositional meaning explains why delusions are false, impossible and sometimes fantastic. A closely related abnormality, failure of linguistic embedding, can additionally account for why delusions are held with fixed conviction and are not adequately justified by the patient. The un-Cartesian linguistic approach to delusions has points of contact with Frith’s theory that inability to form meta-representations underlies a range of schizophrenic symptoms. It may also be relevant to the nature of the “second factor” in monothematic delusions in neurological disease. Finally, it can inform the current debate about whether or not delusions really are beliefs.

The linguistic signature of hallucinated voice talk in schizophrenia

“…Voice talk in this sense thus effectively lacks a deictic center -it is deictically de-centered. Theories of AVHs need to explain this deictic shift, which is in line with theoretical approaches pointing to a disruption of deictic anchoring of thought in schizophrenia potentially not specific to AVH (Crow, 2010;Hinzen et al, 2016). The result is also significant with regards to studies of voice hearing in non-clinical populations.…”

Reference Across Pathologies: A New Linguistic Lens on Disorders of Thought

“…'I sometimes think I am Jesus'), embedding necessarily deprives a proposition of its delusional status. Delusions are therefore necessarily unembedded utterances; and what cannot be embedded cannot be questioned, potentially explaining the status of delusions as unquestionable truths (Hinzen et al 2016b).…”

“…A dysfunction of language is therefore a significant candidate for entailing a reality distortion, of which hallucinations and delusions are clinical manifestations. 23 22 Association with reality distortion symptoms is a problem that befalls another major theory of delusions, which appeals to probabilistic reasoning bias ('jumping to conclusions') (for discussion see Hinzen et al 2016b). The 'dysexecutive' theory of reality distortion faces a similar problem (Dibben et al 2008).…”

“…The language-thought dichotomy (for this particular type of thought) thus collapses, thereby erasing a standard chicken-and-egg problem as well. This latter view will here be called 'un-Cartesian' and be developed in Section 2 as it has evolved over the last decade (via Hinzen 2007;Sheehan and Hinzen 2011;Arsenijevic and Hinzen 2012;Hinzen 2012Hinzen , 2013Hinzen , 2014aHinzen , 2014bHinzen , 2015Hinzen and Sheehan 2013;Martin and Hinzen 2014;Hinzen and Schroeder 2015;Mattos and Hinzen 2015;Hinzen and Rossello 2015;Hinzen et al 2016b;Hinzen et al 2017). 3 Both Cartesian and un-Cartesian views of language can be empirically explored in the context of cognitive disorders, which is the subject of Section 3.…”

De-Rationalising Delusions

“…Although some approaches have suggested delusions are solely explained by a problem with perception (Maher, 1999) or language (Hinzen, Rosselló, & McKenna, 2016), the majority of cognitive accounts draw on the long-established historical idea that delusions reflect an impairment to rationality (Berrios, 1991) which now forms one of the central tenants of explanation for delusional beliefs (Bortolotti, 2010;Gold & Hohwy, 2000;Leeser & O'Donohue, 1999;Radden, 1985). This approach suggests that the presence of marked epistemic irrationality (i.e.…”