On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 06:53:55 -0700, Blaine Peden wrote: >One of my students in a french minor who translated an article for >her research report. She posed the question whether she could >regard her translation as a paraphrase (with appropriate citation) >or whether her translation would be regarded as plagiarism. I have >not encountered this particular situation previously, and welcome >any advice or insights. Thanks, Blaine
I think that there are a couple of different issues here but let's deal with the plagiarism first: (1) I believe that as long your student provides appropriate citation as well as "translated into English by the author/student's name", there is no plagiarism issue. The issue of "translation as plagiarism" has been discussed by some outside of the emprical research area in situations where an author has passed off their translation as an original work. One case is reviewed in the following 1992 article by Venuti in the NY Times Book Reivew: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/23/books/the-awful-crime-of-i-u-tarchetti-plagiarism-as-propaganda.html?scp=1&sq=translation+as+plagiarism&st=nyt&pagewanted=all or http://tinyurl.com/venuti Venuti describes how he uncovered an Italian translation of a Mary Shelley story that had been translated by the author Tarchetti but he did not acknowledge Shelley as the source. This is a pretty clearcut case of plagiarism. (2) As long as appropriate citation is provided, there can be no confusion as to what the English translation is about (though one may ask how accurate the translation is, an issue that Venuti touches on above). But there may be a question of copyright infringement, that is, does the publisher of the article reserve all rights for translation? If so, then, if there is no "fair use" provision, there might be copyright or legal issues about using a translation, particularly quotes, in a new work even with appropriate citation. The issue, I think, would be with using quotes in a paper and not with the translation if the translation is solely for personal use (i.e., your student doesn't sell the translation to someone). Examining the original journal publication policies as well as the relevant copyright conventions appropriate to the country of publication might clear up this issue (this would have to be done if you are considering publishing the paper; for coursework I think it may be a non-issue). -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=5603 or send a blank email to leave-5603-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
