New directions in discourse analysis for translation: a study of decision-making in crowdsourced subtitles of Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech.

This article approaches translation through the application of the model of systemic functional linguistics. More specifically, it explores the use of the potential of appraisal theory of evaluation (Martin, J.R., & White, P.R.R., The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave, 2005), centring on the realization of interpersonal meaning, for the uncovering of translator decision-making. The analysis is applied to a case study of two of President Obama's speeches, including the subtitles of President Obama's State of the Union speech of 25 January 2012. These subtitles were crowdsourced by Amara/Universal Subtitles in collaboration with the Public Broadcasting Service into 25 languages and they provide an illuminating canvas for the analysis of new modes of communication affecting the phenomenon of translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]