L’oggettività sociale della lingua e il problema dell’incomunicabilità: De Mauro, Nencioni e Devoto

Tullio De Mauro’s position in the Italian historical and cultural context of the second half of the XIXth century represents a unique exception of its kind: opposing the general indifference for Benedetto Croce’s philosophy of language, he would have affirmed instead the need for a critique dialogue with his thought, to face directly the same theoretical concerns that had animated the linguistic institutionalism of Giovanni Nencioni and Giacomo Devoto. In this sense, this essay aims to consider the capital problem of the social objectivity of language, together with the problem of incommunicability, primarily analysing Nencioni and Devoto’s solutions to evaluate their specific role in the elaboration of De Mauro’s position, which would have affirmed the centrality of man as foundation and guarantee of the possibility of communication, in a parallel and wise consideration of Croce’s reflection and Ferdinand De Saussure’s teaching.