Translating the Untranslatable

Translation scholars have recently emphasized the importance of the translator's (in)visibility (Venuti) and of the ethical aim of translation (Berman). This paper argues that a) the translation of literary sociolects is paradigmatic of the way in which the translator's visibility is foregrounded within the target text; b) their translation requires a "visible" engagement on the part of the translator which is grounded in an ethics of translation, thus leading beyond the visible/ invisible dichotomy implied by Venuti and the positive/negative ethics dichotomy set up by Berman; c) the comments made by numerous translation scholars concerning the problems raised by literary sociolects reflect some of the contradictions besetting contemporary translation theory.