The Demise of the Disguise: Plagiarism and Translation in an Emerging Global Context

By:
Prof. Marilyn Piety
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Plagiarism is difficult to identify when the original and the copy are in two different languages. If one of the languages is relatively obscure, it is even the less likely anyone will identify the theft. There is thus an historically well-established culture of plagiarism in small countries such as Denmark.

There are signs, however, that the heyday of plagiarism across languages may be past. Increasing numbers of foreigners are reading English, French and German texts in the original language. This means plagiarisms that would earlier have gone unnoticed are now being spotted. Once cases are spotted, new means of communication, such as the internet, enable almost instantaneous alerts to the public. Frank Esmann’s biography of Henry Kissinger, for example, was withdrawn by its Danish publisher, Aschenhoug, shortly after it appeared in the fall of 2004 because a Danish journalist immediately identified it as having been plagiarized from the American, Walter Isaacson’s biography (Kissinger [Simon and Schuster, 1992]).

This paper looks at the Esmann case, as well as several similar cases, and argues that the once thriving practice of plagiarism across languages is increasingly threatened as the spread of information gets easier and easier.


Keywords: Plagiarism, Translation, Scholarly Publishing, Internet, Bilingualism, Information Age, Main Stream Media
Stream: Books, Writing and Reading
Presentation Type: 30 minute Paper Presentation in English
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Prof. Marilyn Piety

Assistant Professor, Department of English and Philosophy, Drexel University
USA

Professor Piety received a Fulbright fellowship to Denmark in 1990. She lived and taught in Denmark from 1990-1998. She has worked as a professional translator and written frequently for both the Danish and the American media on the issues of plagiarism and translation. She has appeared on both Danish and American television and been interviewed on Danish radio. She is an award-winning author whose articles have appeared in publications as diverse as The Times Literary Supplement, The Journal of Business Ethics and Counterpunch. She is member of the board of directors of the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium and a regular columnist for ASK the on-line journal of the College of Arts and Sciences of Drexel University.

Ref: B06P0059