Rediscovering the «language» of those who now have no voice. Reflections and criteria for guiding the speech of adolescents and young people in the postpandemic era

Abstract

Narrative closures and urgencies represent two opposing modes adopted by individuals, especially young people today, in an attempt to define their identity, position themselves within a social context, and establish a future perspective through language; one of the most important mental functions available to us.

Recovering the concept of lalangue, which Lacan uses to explain the newborn’s dependence on the mother’s language, through a minimal educational criteriology we aim to suggest how it is possible today to simplify the complexity of adolescence and youth after traumatic events by helping them rediscover lost words, thus allowing that now dangerously hidden and private «tongue» to gain a shared public discourse capable of rediscovering existential meanings in an age of evident narrative and meaning deserts.