Sigmund Freud's metapsychological vocabulary: from the German language to its translations

Abstract

The following article aims to discuss the ground vocabulary of Freudian Metapsychology, beyond the conception of a simple and stiff collection of technique terms. Facing the fact that Freud was a brilliant writer and a keen explorer of the resources provided by the German language, we intend to demonstrate some distortions his vocabulary and style underwent after its passage through internationally influent translations into English and French. Therefore, since recently his work went into the public domain and finally it begins to be directly translated into Portuguese, it is a capital challenge to Freud's translators in Brazil to recover the lifelike face of his words not disregarding the accuracy of his propositions.