Abstract
Mental disorders are edge phenomena of human mental life. From the point of view of psychology and psychiatry, mental disorders are studied in order to be cured.
However, conceptualization of their origins is still far from comprehensive. Psychiatry and neurolobiology are able (to some extent) influence severity of mental disorders and accounts of symptoms are available, but it seems that this approach has difficulties with theoretising origins of these symptoms.
The presented paper aims to outline possibilities of cognitive semiotics for the study of mental disorders. Cognitive semiotics offer interdisciplinary approach that includes semiotical analysis of meaning-making and sign production on the one hand, and neurobiological perspective on the other.
Thus the symptoms of mental disorders can be described with regard both to their sign nature and to their neural correlates. This approach is further demostrated on schizophrenia.
Hallucinations, as one of the major symptoms of schizophrenia, are specific by their indexicality, rather they being 'misinterpretations of the inner speech'. The paper further describes indexical character of hallucinations and their similarities or differences with other cognitive features (memory, imagination, perception).
The indexicality of hallucinations is compared with neural structures in the brain. In summary, the aim of the presentation is to show how the approach of cognitive semiotics can bring about new concepts in the study of mental disorders and schizophrenia specifically.