This article explores the problems raised by the translation of clichés from a rhetorical point of view. Understood as banal expressions and hackneyed figures of style that do not necessarily have exact equivalents in the target language, clichés call for transposition rather than for literal translation. What is at stake is the capacity of the new formulation to affect and influence the reader. In this framework, the author's essay sets out to look for adequate transposition parameters taking into account the degree of familiarity of the expression, the situation of discourse, the genre, the textual environment. It stresses the difference between clichés as verbal frozen expressions and stereotypes as collective frozen representations, showing that if stereotypes are often easily translatable on the literal plane, they do not necessarily keep their meaning and power when they are moved from one cultural background to another.