Many scholars remark how important it is to understand the function that a dialect may have in the text, before translating it. In fact, as Newmark (1988) points out, the most relevant factor in translating non-standard varieties is the identification of its functions in the original text. Hence, he tried to identify three main functions that a dialect usually has in the source text (ST). It can be used to show a slang use of language, to highlight social class contrasts, and to indicate local cultural features. Once they have been identified and established, the translator can choose what language to adopt in the target text, keeping in mind that these functions should be maintained in the target text (Newmark, 1988).

Similarly, Pym (2000) asks whether the markers of linguistic varieties should be translated or not. He admits that the “question is a chestnut allowing any number of platitudes” (Pym, 2000: 1). He states that the translator has first to distinguish between the two main functions that a vernacular language may have in a literary text. These categories are: “parody” and “authenticity.” In the first case, vernaculars are used to “lubricate the less intelligent characters” and to amuse the readership (Pym, 2000: 2). In this case, the translator is not faced with a linguistic variety as such, but a “functional representation of the variety, shorn to just a few stereotypical elements” (Pym, 2000: 2). There are a few markers of the variation and they are continually repeated and reproduced. When markers are seen as “typical” elements of a variety, then parody occurs. In the case of authenticity, the markers of variation are balanced between lexis and syntax in order to make the linguistic variety a “real thing” (Pym, 2000). Pym’s solution is to render the linguistic variation from the norm, but he points out that it is not the source-text variety that is to be rendered, but a kind of variety, no matter what it is.

Ramos Pinto observes that generally dialects appear in dialogues, rather than in the narrative voice and their main function is to define the sociocultural background of the characters and their “position in the sociocultural fictional context” (Ramos Pinto, 2009: 3) and to contribute to the social stratification of the various characters. Likewise, in 2010 Hejwowski (quoted in Szymańska, 2017) stresses that the functions of the language varieties signal differences of the characters concerning social status, education, ethnic identity, the character’s knowledge of a language or his/her foreign origin, but that they also signal temporal distance or introduce linguistic humour.

Hodson (2014) also underlines that the most canonical part of a literary text where one can find dialect is in direct speech; in that case, its main function is to associate a character to a social group. Nevertheless, it is quite common to find dialect or non-standard varieties in the narrative voice and in free indirect speech. In the case of the narrative voice, Hodson (2014) references the novel Castle Rackrent written by Maria Edgeworth as an example. In her novel, the narrator is Thady Quirk, an uneducated Irish servant who tells the story from his point of view and in part using his own variety, Irish. As for the free indirect discourse, Hodson’s example is Alan Sillitoe’s novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, whose protagonist’s point of view is rendered through non-standard free indirect speech. This “heteroglossia”, as reported in Hodson’s above mentioned study, is a choice of the writers, who decide to compose their works of multiple voices and languages, including the narrative voice, which adopts a different style to tell the story. Hodson describes the effect of the narrative voice in dialect as “often highly oral, as if the narrator were speaking directly to the reader” (Hodson, 2014: 86).

Miszalska (2014) sums up the various functions that the use of dialect may have in a literary work4. The first is cultural and symbolic. The use of sayings, proverbs and expressions typical of dialect evoke stories, beliefs and myths linked to the culture that the dialect conveys. The second function is expressive and aesthetic, especially in poetry. In this case we may also include what Hodson (2014) defines as “eye dialect”. It is a kind of respelling that “gives the impression of being dialectal when the reader looks at it, but it does not convey any information about the pronunciation when the reader sounds it out” (Hodson, 2014: 95). It is used to mark the speech of a character as non-standard, though only visually (that is why it is called “eye dialect”). Dialect may also be used on purpose with the function to contrast the hegemony of the standard language, thus in an ideological or polemical way. Another function may be intimate or “psychoanalytical”, as Miszalska (2014) defines it. The use of dialect in this case sets in motion feelings and thoughts belonging to our subconscious; the dialect is thus a tool that allows the writer to express what is usually considered “taboo.” Writers may use dialect in a comical way, that is to say to amuse the audience and the readers. This is typical of dialectal theatre. The last function may be represented by the realism that authors want to convey in a text. Therefore, they use dialect to depict everyday life experiences.