The emergence of trauma through language: How past conflicts surface as interpretative patterns in discourses of memory and identity

Trauma has been linked to the impossibility of verbal expression or representation. This article suggests a different approach to collective memory through Discourse Analysis, and argues that events of the past can surface in the discourses of generations born after the original conflict or harm, in the form of interpretative patterns or mental models that guide discourse production. Through an empirical study based on oral interviews conducted with young adults in the Basque Country (Spain), it concludes that the memory of the 1936 Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship marked a traumatic experience that has endured in the collective imaginary of the region, up to the point of functioning as a powerful mental model for younger generations who were born more than 50 years later. It shows how these youngsters resort to narratives related to their group’s past experiences in order to build their own memory discourses about contemporary conflicts.