Representing phonetic features

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The representation of phonetic features occurs generally within fictive dialogue, monologue or any discourse of characters or narrators in literary forms with realistic foundations. It is used in order to reflect dialect, etnolect, sociolect, to reflect spontaneous and dynamic everyday speech or to create the idiolect of a specific character. But obviously, phonetic features belong to spoken language. The author has to use specific graphic resources that evoke in the reader associations with phonetic characteristics of oral speech. The present contribution deals with the difficulties underlying the translation of phonetic aspects in literary dialogue. The results of the study derive from a broader comparative analysis of Latin-American narrative works and their translations into German and/or English. In order to show how phonetic features are represented and further transposed into the target language, only high occurrence examples of fictive phonetic features are quoted.