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Some of the earlier writings of Freud were very specific about language and the bivalence of language, with regard to what he believed was going on intrapsychically. Symbolism, specific symbolism, pictorial symbolism were really secondary elaborations. Language
was a representation of man.
I don't think Freud ever really addressed himself to the operational study of language. In his early writings, he referred to two classes of symbols: normal symbols and hysterical symbols. Normal symbols were simply symbols of which the speaker knew the meaning. Hysterical symbols were those of which the meaning was unconscious, e.g., an obsessive act or something like that. I think Freud accepted pretty much the findings of general philology. The main interest, then, was in the origin of the language—the ding-doing theory and the bow-wow theory, and also the theory that language evolved because there were certain interpersonal processes like love and sexual play. Acts weren't enough they needed some kind of embellishment. I also think Freud was trapped by arbitrariness. It used to be thought that the reason the infant said "ma" as his first word was because the sound engaged the muscles used in nursing. Then when they began to study primitive languages they found a lot of words for "ma" that didn't begin with "m." A tremendous change in psychoanalysis came at the time when after Freud's patient told him the story of her alleged seduction, Freud investigated and found it not true. If this situation came up today the analyst would immediately think, "What is there in the relationship between us that she is expressing in the past tense or what is the situation that she is using memory or an anecdote to represent?" Freud, obviously thought, "Well, if the incident hadn't happened when she was seven years, she must have had the wis