One of the countless problems the translator has to face when doing a
translation is the problem of translating dialectal texts. To deal with this topic, I
have divided my paper into four sections where I try to deal with several
aspects all related to translation of this type of text. The first part deals
with the debatable question of differentiating between language and
dialect. We shall see what is understood by language and dialect, not only
from the General Linguistics point of view but, more specifically, from the
Sociolinguistic point of view as well. The second part will deal with literary
translation and the problems this kind of translation brings about. In the
third part I shall attempt to establish the reasons why dialect is used for
literary purposes. Finally, I shall be looking at some examples where dialect
has been used in two of the translations into Spanish of Bemard Shaw's
Pygmalion. We shall see how successful the translators have been in their
attempt to translate the dialect and what techniques they have applied to
their respective translation