Cotter Matthew, McGowan Alessia, Bilgrami Zarina, Sarac Cansu, Bayer Johanna, Spark Jessica, Krcmar Marija, Formica Melanie, Gwyther Kate, Hartmann Jessica, Shuster Sophia, Selloni Alexandria, Shah Jai, Herrera Shaynna N, McGorry Patrick, Yung Alison R, Nelson Barnaby, Mizrahi Romina, Cecchi Guillermo, Heisig Stephen, Srivastava Agrima, Corcoran Cheryl M
Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY USA.
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA USA.
NPP Digit Psychiatry Neurosci. 2024;2(1):17. doi: 10.1038/s44277-024-00018-5. Epub 2024 Oct 18.
Many individuals with psychotic symptoms have less complex language than healthy individuals. Word etymology is a lexical feature that has not yet been studied in clinical populations, but among healthy individuals, words of Old French origin are chosen over Germanic-origin words to convey formality (e.g. "inquire" vs. "ask"). Differences in language complexity among individuals with psychotic symptoms may relate to differences in etymological content in speech. Here, we determined the proportion of Germanic-origin word use and Old-French-origin word use in a large cohort of individuals with recent-onset psychosis or at clinically high risk for psychosis, hypothesizing that individuals with recent onset psychosis would have increased use of Germanic-origin words and decreased use of Old-French-origin words. This hypothesis was borne out, even after adjusting for sex, age, recruitment site, education, racial identity, and for a subset, IQ. Etymology proportions were associated with role but not social functioning in individuals with psychotic symptoms, consistent with the premise that they reflect speech formality. Understanding speech differences in the psychosis spectrum through the lens of etymology may lead to new interventions to improve role functioning.
许多有精神病症状的个体语言能力不如健康个体复杂。词源是一种尚未在临床人群中研究过的词汇特征，但在健康个体中，人们会选择源于古法语的词汇而非源于日耳曼语的词汇来传达正式感（例如“inquire”与“ask”）。有精神病症状的个体之间语言复杂性的差异可能与言语中词源内容的差异有关。在此，我们确定了一大群近期发病的精神病患者或临床高危精神病个体中源于日耳曼语的词汇和源于古法语的词汇的使用比例，假设近期发病的精神病个体使用源于日耳曼语的词汇会增加，而使用源于古法语的词汇会减少。这一假设得到了证实，即使在对性别、年龄、招募地点、教育程度、种族身份以及一部分人的智商进行调整之后也是如此。词源比例与有精神病症状个体的角色功能相关，但与社交功能无关，这与它们反映言语正式程度的前提一致。通过词源视角理解精神病谱系中的言语差异可能会带来改善角色功能的新干预措施。
