What is the technical, medical term for when people talk out loud to
themselves, inappropriately? You see mentally ill people doing it on
the street or in the halls sometimes.

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 01 Jul 2003 08:48 PDT

This talking out loud syndrome may not be the disorder itself, but
could be merely a symptom of an illness. Tic disorder, schizophrenia
and Delusionary disorder could all cause people to speak to themselves
inappropriately. Perhaps you want a researcher to list all the
disorders that cause this action. Just a suggestion.

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Clarification of Question by questioner2003-ga on 02 Jul 2003 03:31 PDT

Sorry for delay in response. Was out doing other stuff. This topic
seems to be getting some attention. Neat.

What I'm observing doesn't look pathological. Not schizophrenic. Not
Tourette. Probably not delusional. Normal gone a little wrong. Quite
possibly temporary (Kobayashi article).

Talking out loud with good conversation - soliloquy. 

It's clear this is not studied -- no quick terms from you who
obviously know the mental illness side or the speech problem side.

Dear questioner2003,

Thank you for the nice surprise and note, I appreciate it. Personally,
I would think you would be safe to use "logorrhea", assuming many of
the people who exhibit this behaviour probably are suffering from some
type of schizophrenia. But again, one shoe isn't going to fit all.
Browse through the Dorland's Medical Dictionary (my last link) - with
alittle luck, you'll find a term that suits you better.

Sincerely,
hummer

Hello Q2003,

I don't know if there's a singular medical term that you seek.  One
that seems the most descriptive to me is "hallucinatory soliloquy"
although I don't know that it's in common psychiatric parlance.

"hallucinatory soliloquy"
http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/brown/schizophrenia/kobayashi.pdf

"communicative schism"
Soliloquy or Schizophrenia
http://www.oikos.org/soliloqu.htm

parylogia - irrelevant speech
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/history_subpages/stinchfieldtaxonomy.html

It could be a part of a larger symptom complex categorized in 
"disturbance of thought content, " "loosening of association,"
"cognitive slippage" 
http://www2.hutchcc.edu/faculty/coplenm/marywebsupport/ch12otln.htm

or a component of "anomie"
"anomie"
http://www.california.com/~rathbone/local2.htm

"cerebellar speech"
http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_hl_dorlands.jspzQzpgzEzzSzppdocszSzuszSzcommonzSzdorlandszSzdorlandzSzdmd_s_17zPzhtm

"mutterance - An important statement or admission, made under one's
breath; any mumbled exclamation when one is talking to one's self, but
accidentally doing so aloud.

e.g., Some of the most dangerous things in a realtionship are the
mutterances that escape your lips late at night, when you are talking
but are very close to sleeping."  submitted by Dave Cee
http://pseudodictionary.com/search.php?letter=m&browsestart=860

low talker - a person who speaks in a very low (sometimes sub-sonic)
voice
Seinfeld Dictionary
http://www.angelfire.com/nj/carlb/seinfeld/seinfelddictionary.html

AOD Thesaurus
http://etoh.niaaa.nih.gov/AODVol1/aodhngz.htm

I hope some of these are helpful and I'll post any others if they come
to mind.

Regards,
V

The Kobayashi article was very helpful, although not exactly the topic
(deals with hallucination of soliloquizing). Article notes this is an
condition not much studied, but very common.

Soliloquy seems a good part of this term, and possibly cerebellar
speech. This has given me a lot to go on -- and a couple of references
to check out from the article. Thanks.

Maybe this is similar?  If so, I don't know the name of the condition.

My mother spent some time in a brain injury recovery center several
years back.  The range and scope of brain injurie, and how they
evidenced themselves, was just astounding.  One patient had the
unfortunate condition of being compelled to disrobe completely, and
then had no idea why they were doing it.

One day while going to visit my mother, I hat to wait for the
elevator.  The elevator arrived, the door opened, and out walked a
patient and a nurse.  The patient looked directly at me and said out
loud to the nurse (with no hint of shame) "There's that big fat guy I
was telling you about earlier."

Shock overtook me.  I said "Excuse me?!"  That's just not proper or
polite, right?

The nurse cut in, apologized, and explained that the patient had a
certain condition, and in layman's terms (what I could remember), the
patient didn't really know what should and should not be said out
loud.  The difference between their internal voice and their external
voice wasn't distinguishable to them.  The lines of what is proper and
what is acceptable just weren't clear to them.

Sorry that I don't know the term.  Was that the symptoms you were
talking about?

Andy

What you may be referring to might be Tourette Syndrome:

http://www.tsa-usa.org/

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

A friend of mine who suffered from bipolar illness was once
hospitalized after she was found wandering the streets talking to
herself. When I went to the hospital to arrange her release, I noticed
that one line of her chart referred to the inappropriate self-talk as
"delusional soliloquy."

Also found "jargonaphasia" or "neolgistic jargonaphasia."
http://www.goertzel.org/books/mind/chapter_seven.html

Then there's "vorbierden" (talking past the point) although people who
engage in this aren't always schizophrenic -- they're usually
politicians.
http://www.psychejam.com/mental_state_examination.htm

Q, maybe you'd like to choose which word most closely conveys the
meaning and have that person post in the answer section.  However, if
you don't think we've hit on the exact word you're looking for, we can
keep looking.  Just give us a signal with your wishes.

I second the Tourette's suggestion -- a friend has a cousin who saw
him in shorts and inadvertently yelled out "chicken legs!" lol
These exclamations were one symptom of her Tourette's.

Here's "schizophasia or schizophrenic speech/language" but this sounds 
more like the parsing of language rather than the actual street-corner 
process you wish to name.
http://www.neurolabor.de/DAT-Web/schizos12.htm

However, if this is of interest to you and you have access to Medline 
articles, you might try entering "schizophasia" in the search box.  
There are quite a few articles on this phenomena.  Here's an article 
that looked interesting, if a bit dated:

Brain Lang. 1976 Oct;3 (4):516-65.  Related Articles, Links
Schizophasia and jargonaphasia. A comparative description with 
comments on Chaika's and Fromkin's respective looks at "schizophrenic" 
language.
Lecours AR, Vanier-Clement M.
PMID: 974729 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

As an aside and in researching this topic for you, I couldn't help but 
wonder if an alien fell to earth and witnessed a Jew swaying in 
hisboddidus, a Pentecostal lost in glossalia, a Tibetan Buddhist 
chanting, or a Muslim at salat, which would he conclude was mentally 
ill?  Maybe we should just call it a "schizophrenic prayer"?

Will keep looking for a more clinical term though... ;-)

Hello again Q2003,

It seems we've attacked this word on the medical, psychiatric,
speech/language, and theological fronts, so I'll throw in another
discipline  -- social anthropology.  Erving Goffman studied individual
"backstage" behavior -- those quirky things we all do when no one's
looking -- as he examined the "life is a stage" metaphor.  He wrote
quite extensively on the subject, both in the world of the sane ("The
Presentation of Everyday Self") and the insane ("Asylums").

You may wish to check out his book "Forms of Talk" but he seems to
refer to this behavior as generic "self-talk" or "soliloquizing." 
Some interesting excerpts from the book are here:
http://inicia.es/de/edfabra/GoffmanFormsofTalk.htm

buy the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/081221112X/102-8264288-9941744?vi=glance

read more about him here:
http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~eliotf/Celebrating_Erving_Goffman.html

Goffman in cyberspace here:
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc4j3/stuweb/cyber9/front.htm

resources at Questia:
http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp?CRID=erving_goffman&OFFID=se1

writings, etc.
http://www.cfmc.com/adamb/writings/goffman.htm

*******************

and back to the surreptitious voices:
http://thesaurus.reference.com/thesaurus/roget/IV/528.html

from a medical terminology perspective, words ending in -phasia on
-phonia have to do with speech, so you might check here under
"aphasia":
http://www.driesen.com/glossary_a-d.htm

********************

If we still haven't nailed it, you could do the researchers a favor by
answering a few questions on the behavior you're studying:

is this disordered or coherent speech?  rate?  volume -- a soliloquy
(sotto voce) perhaps?  eccentricities of speech?

is your subject perfectly "normal" in every other respect?

are you looking for the "why" someone engages in this behavior in
order to "name" it?

is there a medical basis to account for this behavior in your subject
-- possibly a frontal lobe lesion?

***********************

We're trying to help you make a precise selection of terminology but I
think we're a bit bumfuzzled -- and, yes, that it is a valid medical
term (in my opinion) even if it doesn't pass spellcheck.  ;-)

Best,
V

I want to close up. This was me doing homework before taking action.
I've learned a great deal.  It's clear that there's not something
straightforward out there for this. But there's a time when you call
in a professional.

Voila -- your resources have been excellent. I've printed and saved
this page each time so I can use it as reference -- in addition to
bookmarks. You're getting my $10. The answer is -- it's complicated,
could be several things, well could be important, needs expert look.

Was an interesting question though, wasn't it? Q2003