Ponti di sconoscenza. Una riflessione sul ruolo dei linguaggi delle narrazioni (e delle competenze) nello spazio sociale e comunicativo contemporaneo

Bridges of misapprehension. A Reflectionon the Role of the Language of narratives (and of Narrative Competence) in the Contemporary Social and Communicative Sphere. This article has been inspired by some considerations on the bridging role of the cognitive cortex, the “civilising organ” that constitutes the culmination of a long adaptive process. An instrument that guarantees to the members of our species all the advantages connected to symbolic representation, the cerebral cortex becomes the potential carrier of all the risks related to the transmission of stories, those constructions that are probably the most sophisticated and the most specifically human expressions of the symbolic activity. A syncretic fusion of languages and other semiotic means, narration is not only a vehicle for knowledge, but a form of knowledge itself, communicative action carrying as much experiential weight as extralinguistic action. What can we infer about those who live nowadays, in the era of social networks that have their own “minimal unit” in the story and who have found in their mobile phone an endless replicator of these stories? What is the antidote that we can hope for against deceptive narratives? Are they structured according to a coherence principle? By answering these questions, the article pleads for an upgrade of the educational and pedagogical processes, particularly at the beginning, as well as for a systematic approach to learning/teaching based on competence development and on employing the text as minimal cognitive uni