Linguistic Relativity and the Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

sounds much closer to English "she" than to either "he" or "it." What this woman was doing is standard procedure for individuals unaccustomed to speaking a particular second language: she was substituting the similar sounds of a word in her native language (that had a similar or related meaning) for a word in the unfamiliar language. I wish I could end this tale happily; but I was never allowed to speak to the patient myself, even though I had arranged for an interpreter from the large Samoan community in San Francisco to come and talk to both the patient and social worker. No one was allowed to see the patient after my conversation with the social worker, even though I sent some of my students in various guises to Highland Hospital. I later found she had been transferred to a psycRiatric ward.