Towards Achieving Functional Equivalence in the Translation of Subtle Racism: An Appraisal-Based Approach

This thesis provides a translation and a commentary on a chapter from a book titled Racism Without Racists-Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (2017) by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva in which the author examines the stance of the white people towards minority “blacks” in contemporary American (from interviews). My translation is preceded by a functional analytical commentary which discusses the strategies followed in capturing the ideological features of the source text and the participants’ concealed stance through the use of Martin and White’s Appraisal Framework which was based on Haliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. In my analysis, I examined two areas of focus within the selected appraisal framework: the first area of focus is Intersubjective Positioning “Engagement”, and the second is Attitudinal Assessment and Graduation. By using these descriptive tools, I aim to produce a target text that preserves the same level of functional subtlety of stance in the source text without any intervention in the interviewees’ stance, position, or ideology.