Vansinnet, dårskapen och idiotin - en kritisk diskursanalys om schizofreni.

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to examine how autobiographic authors afflicted by schizophrenia use their language when they talk about themselves, what kind of words and terms they use when they talk about schizophrenia and if there is a possibility that the discourses that the authors use differentiate from each other. In order to examine this I used critical discourse analysis due to the fact that people afflicted by the disease schizophrenia is a very exposed group in our modern society, and due to the fact that the critical aim of the critical discourse analysis is to emphasize the injustice feeble groups face in the society. In order to perform this study I analyzed four autobiographic books, all written by controversial and well-known authors who are afflicted, or have been afflicted by schizophrenia but later in life not reached the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. In conclusion, the result showed that there are discourses that differentiate from each other and discourses which seem very similar to each other. The result also showed that all authors used negative and stereotypic words and concepts when they talked about themselves from outside their disease, schizophrenia. The reason for this type of language used is because of, according to my theories, the upper classes claim of how the language in different discourses should be used.