Semantics and schizophrenic language: The contribution of Sergio Piro

Alterations of language are a classical hallmark of schizophrenia that many psychologists studied as an expression of psychotic thought disorder. Studies addressing the linguistic specificities of schizophrenic language are less frequent, and those focusing on the semantic sphere are very rare. This paper examines Sergio Piro’s studies on schizophrenic language. His theory of semantic dissociation offers a solution to old disputes (e.g. excessive concretism vs abstractness of schizophrenic language). Piro suggests a fluctuating semantic halo that can be enlarged and/or restricted, depending on the linguistic situation. The process of semantic dissociation includes four possible disorders, representing a gradual disorganization of speech: the fluctuation of the semantic halo, the semantic distortion, the semantic dispersion, and the semantic dissolution. Finally, by approaching the topic through semantic analysis, he restored anthropological meaning to linguistic features previously conceived as mere symptoms of a degenerative process.