Zum alltagsmetaphorischen Gebrauch des Wortes schizophren
Zum alltagsmetaphorischen Gebrauch des Wortes schizophren

Summary/Abstract: Besides the medical usage, in everyday language the term schizophrenic is usually used to refer to something ambivalent, paradoxical and contradictory. This fact does not come as a big surprise with regard to the word’s Greek origin schizein, which means “(to) split” and phrén, which means “spirit”. Scientists who study this slang usage characterize it as metaphorical and complain about an association of schizophrenia with a multiple personality, which schizophrenia is not. Although the medical term ‘Spaltungsirresein’ has been considered obsolete for a long time and the phenomenon of multiple personality has its own name, in slang language the usage of ‘schizophrenic’ continues to exist. To what extent the everyday usage is metaphorical shall be discussed in this article.

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