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

According to a linguistic tradition identified here as ‘Cartesian’, thought is independent of language. Rather than representing the configurator of a human-specific mind, language is relegated to an expressive system dedicated to the communication of an independently constituted thought process. Pursuing an alternative ‘un-Cartesian’ vision here, which regards human-specific thought and language as intrinsically linked, I review clinical language patterns in two populations with major cognitive disorders, autism spectrum conditions and schizophrenia, with a view to how language might illuminate psychopathology and vice versa. One universal linguistic function is reference: we cannot utter sentences without referring to persons, objects, and events, based on lexicalized concepts that provide descriptions of these referents. Reference in this sense takes a number of human-specific forms that systematically co-vary with forms of grammatical organization. It also proves to be highly vulnerable across major cognitive disorders. Grammar is thereby correlated with a central cognitive function that mediates forms of thought and selfhood critical to rational health. In this way, clinical linguistic and cognitive diversity provides a new window into the foundational question of the thought-language relationship and the cognitive significance of grammar.

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Wolfram Hinzen is a professor of philosophy who currently holds several appointments: at Catalan Institute for Advanced Studies and Research (ICREA), at the Departament de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, at the FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalaries Research Foundation, Benito Menni Hospital, Barcelona, and at Department of Philosophy, Durham University, UK.