Discourse analysis of interviews with manic patients

This thesis analyses the discourse of two manic patients, interviewed at an acute stage of their illness. The analysis has two aims: to begin a comprehensive analysis of manic discourse, a task which has not been undertaken in other work; and to describe and refine a methodology suited to the purpose of analysing discourse taken from unstructured interviews with psychotic patients. The aims of this study are set in the context of broader aims for research in the area of language and psychopathology. A selective review of the relevant literature is given. This is followed by a brief over- view of those disciplines from which concepts informing the analysis have been drawn. These disciplines include pragmatics, social psychology and sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and linguistics and semiotics. The analysis is divided into two parts; micro-analysis and macro- analysis. The micro-analysis consists of tone-unit analysis, which examines the process by which the speaker segments utterances into message blocks; and cohesion analysis, which examines the way in which words are selected, and combined to form cohesive utterances. The macro- analysis includes exchange structure analysis, an examination of the interchanges between patient and interviewer; and analysis of topic structure. This addresses itself to the movement from one topic to another as well as to the well-formedness of single topic sequences. The thesis concludes with an appraisal of the findings, an evaluation of the methodology and suggestions for further research.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

1984

Author dc:creator

• Swartz, Sally Grace

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Levett, Ann

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14818

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14818