Comparing the usage of hedges in schizophrenics and healthy people

This research compares the usage of hedges in narratives of healthy people and patients with schizophrenia. The participants selected for this study were 15 female patients diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia, and the comparison group consisted of 15 healthy female control subjects. The two groups were matched for chronological age, gender, socio-economic variables and level of formal education. ‘The Pear Film’, a six-minute motion picture with a soundtrack but no dialogue was used to elicit narratives from participants. All samples were audio-recorded and transcribed for further analysis. After implementing the participants' narratives in the MaxQda 2018, the coding of hedges was applied via the software. Hyland (1994) categorization and Skelton (1998) definition of hedges with some changes regarding the Persian language was used to identify and encode hedges. For this purpose, 7 categories of hedges including modal verbs, modal expressions, raising impersonal constructions, negative constructions, question forms, verbs of doubt and re-counts were defined in this study. All the data collected through the narrative production from participants were examined using SPSS software. Data analysis was consisted of two parts; first, the data were presented in descriptive terms and then, inferential statistics including Mann-Whitney and t-test were applied. The results of comparing the usage of hedges among the 7 categories showed that healthy people utilized modal expressions (p= 0.015) and verbs of doubt (p= 0.000) more significantly than patients. Through the usage of hedges, narrators intend to inform their listeners that they are not assured about a particular statement uttered by them. This indicates that they are aware of this doubt and it seems that this aspect of hedges might be related to the theory of mind which is impaired in schizophrenic patients. Also, participants must be able to evaluate the existing conditions and options in the context of the film to properly employ hedges within their narratives, and as patients with schizophrenia have difficulties at pragmatic level, this could affect their usage of both modal expressions and verbs of doubt. Therefore, significant difference between two groups may be linked to the patient’s impairment in theory of mind and the inability to use pragmatic rules.