The Translational Signified. Slips of the Tongues in Freud's Works

Abstract

This article deals with the significance of translation in two selected texts by Sigmund Freud: Dream and Delusion in Wilhelm Jensen's 'Gradiva' (1907) and Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood (1910). The discussion of the functional role which translations from one language into another play in Freud's case studies will lead to the working hypothesis of a “translational signified”. Derived from what deconstructive criticism calls the 'transcendental signified', this concept seems to be central for Freud's use of “foreign language” evidence. More specifically, and against the grain of the assumptions held by poststructuralist critics for whom Freud was an influential predecessor, it can be demonstrated how the argumentation of Freud's analyses crucially requires a warrant of significational equivalence between the Italian original and the German translation. The example of Freud's interpretive use of the Italian word sole (as 'Sonne', or 'sun') as well as the counter example of Freud's mistranslation of the word nibbio in the study on da Vinci will help to substantiate the argument.