On Translated Plagiarism in Academic Discourse

Abstract

Cross-language plagiarism is increasingly being accorded the interest of academics, but it is still an underresearched area. Rather than displaying linguistic similarity or identity of lexemes, phrases or grammatical structures within one language, translated plagiarism is viewed as the theft of ideas involving two languages. Two instances of translated plagiarism will be discussed - lifting a text from language A, translating it in language B to reuse it as one’s own text, and back-translation: lifting a text verbatim from language A, translating into language B and then re-translating back into language A. The emphasis will be on non-standard structures and inappropriate linguistic choices violating source language norms which could go some way towards assisting in the detection of translated plagiarism, a task heretofore not resolved either by linguists or by computer specialists. The topic is of seminal importance to non-English speaking academic contexts.