The role of metaphor and metonymy in the portrayal of what is currently called schizophrenia

Abstract

This paper employs cognitive linguistics to investigate the role of metaphor and metonymy in the portrayal of schizophrenia in Scandinavian psychiatric textbooks from three time periods: c. 1900, when the name of the disorder was dementia praecox (‘prematurely out of one’s mind’), c. 1950, when schizophrenia (‘split mind’) had replaced dementia praecox, and c. 2000. The study reveals that metaphor and metonymy play important roles in the naming and descriptions of the disorder. The change of name seems to have led to a change in metaphor use in the textbooks, with patients being described as “split” after the introduction of schizophrenia. The adjective schizophrenic makes it possible to refer to the diagnosed person by means of the diagnosis, as in “a schizophrenic”. Both the connotations of schizophrenia and the DIAGNOSIS FOR DIAGNOSED-metonymy are likely to contribute to the stigmatisation associated with the illness and the persons suffering from it.