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Pragmatic use of Language by Adolescents who did not develop Schizophrenia until adulthood

Running Title: pragmatic use of language in pre-morbid adolescents Abstract At eleven years of age all children in a UK national birth cohort wrote short stories about the life they expected to be leading at age 25. Using a data linkage exercise, we identified those who later developed schizophrenia , affective psychosis , or other non-psychotic psychiatric disorders in later life based on the PSE CATEGO diagnostic system. The majority of these had completed the written essays. Controls from the reference population were selected , matched for gender, IQ and social and economic status. The essays were scored using well established methods for assessing pragmatic use of language, namely narrative coherence and linguistic cohesion. We hypothesised that children pre-morbid for schizophrenia (Pre-Scz) would obtain low scores on all these measures. However this general hypothesis was largely disproved by the data, although some unpredicted gender effects were found. It is concluded that once one controls for reduced general cognitive ability (nb IQ) thought appears to be organised in an unexceptional way, in adolescents prior to their developing schizophrenia. 3 1. Introduction Understanding the full meaning of what someone says is typically influenced by your perceptions of the speaker ie who it is, and the social context in which the utterance is made. 'I've had it' or ' I'm done' are all but meaningless. In the context of the speaker trying to complete a task , one infers a generic meaning ' S/he is ceasing to do a difficult task ' but the full meaning can be embellished further with great understanding of the context to include assumptions such as the speaker being too tired, bored, or frustrated to continue. This aspect of communication is referred to as 'pragmatics' since to understand the full meaning one has to appreciate the practical , or social, setting .The study of pragmatics in linguistics covers those aspects of communication that are refers to word use in spoken or written communication which is informed by the social context in which the spoken utterance, or written text, is produced. Pragmatics is just as relevant to written language too. We understand the notice in a shop window " Baby Sale-lots of bargains " to be about a clothes sale, not a sale of babies .'I've had it' or ' I'm done' in the context of trying to complete a task , which means ' I am stopping my …