clang association

noun

ˈklaŋ- 

: association of words based on their similar sound rather than meaning

Note: Clang association occurs in schizophrenia and in the manic phase of bipolar disorder.

Clang associations involve a persistent focus on the sound rather than on the meaning of verbal productions. Clang associations sometimes occur to a subject's own comments when the sound of some word he has used becomes fixed in his associations.

—Irving B. Weiner, Psychodiagnosis in Schizophrenia