Coherence in Psychotic Discourse

This fascinating study explores the ways of establishing coherence in the discourse of a psychotic patient. Analyzing the talk between a doctor and a patient in an acute crisis, and then later, when the patient is deemed recovered, Branca Telles Ribeiro looks at how the participants jointly establish referential meaning, and how topic coherence is achieved or breaks down. She then considers how the participants convey superordinate messages and metamessages, and how the patient signals and assesses the frame of talk.

Ribiero suggests that psychotic discourse, while incoherent on the level of topic, may be coherent on another level---that of frame. She shows how the patient consistently creates different frames of talk and correctly assesses the situation in which she finds herself. Using sociolinguistic discourse analysis, conversational analysis, and frame analysis, Ribeiro's study demonstrates the importance of contextualization in interaction, forcing us to reconsider what behavior we term "crazy".