Abstract   

Foreign accents in fiction are often used to define a character, and set him apart. They are usually introduced by using suprasegmental elements, which, juxtaposed on the character’s vocabulary, seem to distort the words in order to suggest an accent, or by introducing foreign words and phrases into an otherwise familiar language. Foreign accents provide additional information on a character’s origin, background, personality or as to how the others view him/her, without recourse to narration. His foreignness is more often than not a key element of who he/she is and what he/she represents. Nevertheless, due to the limitations of the target language, the cultural censoring that the translator might judge necessary or simply the fact that a foreign accent loses its foreignness when it’s translated into the language it represents, in some instances, foreign accents become untranslatable. This paper sets to study the (un)translatability of foreign accents, and its impact on characterization and storytelling, in fiction.

KEYWORDS: foreign accents, cultural censoring, linguistic limitations, characterization, translatability