Steuber defines it as "repeating chains of words that are associated semantically or phonetically with no relevant context".
While a poet rhyming is not evidence of mental illness, disorganized speech that impedes the patient's ability to communicate is a disorder in itself, often seen in schizophrenia.
[5] This measures tendencies of 18 subtypes of formal thought disorder (with strong inter-coder reliability) including clanging as a type of FTD.
[2] There has been much debate about whether FTDs are a symptom of thought or language, yet the basis for FTD analysis is the verbal behaviour of the patients.
[2] Clanging is associated with the irregular thinking apparent in psychotic mental illnesses (e.g. mania and schizophrenia).
[1] In an analysis of speech in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls, Steuber found that glossomania (association chaining) is a characteristic of speech in schizophrenic patients - despite no significant difference between normal controls and individuals with schizophrenia.
Candidate genes for such vulnerability of schizophrenia are the FOXP2 (which is linked to a familial language disorder and autism) and dysbindin 1 genes43,44.
[1] This distal explanation not only does not explain clanging specifically, but also fails to include other environmental influences on the development of schizophrenia.