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Republishing a journal article in another language (in another journal)?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have a paper that is going to be published in French in an edited volume, but I also want to publish the paper in English. How should I go about this? Can I submit the English paper to a journal and state that it is published in French elsewhere? Or should I just accept that this paper will only be read by French speakers?

I guess I would think one isn't supposed to publish the same paper twice in different journals, regardless of language differences (as it still amounts to a "redundant publication"). I know books are often translated into new languages, but that seems different than publishing the same article in two journals. But maybe I'm wrong about this? I have to confess that I don't have previous experience on this, so maybe I'm missing something.

What do readers think?

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12 responses to “Republishing a journal article in another language (in another journal)?”

  1. Malcolm

    For what it’s worth, an anecdote: it was discovered while I was refereeing an article for a journal that the author had previously published in a journal in another language, and they did not disclose that fact.
    The article was rejected for publication.
    There were also independent reasons to reject the article, which had received an R&R before the duplication was discovered. However, I think the journal took this as a case of self-plagiarism and grounds for rejection. I don’t know what would have happened would the author have disclosed. This journal is typically considered a second-tier, “good,” core analytic/LEMM journal.
    I’m not sure what it takes to reprint journal articles, but I suspect it would involve a combination of stature and the right context (for instance, Burge’s 1993 “Content Preservation” originally in Phil Review was reprinted in Philosophical Issues for a 1995 special issue).

    Reply
  2. Bill V.

    I don’t know any journals that publish translations of journal articles. But many people already publish papers that are very similar in content to other things they have published: Perhaps there is a way to reframe the paper that would make it different enough to not be self-plagiarism, e.g., extending it to a new case or covering a new problem. If that won’t work, OP could post the English translation to PhilPapers–many things there seem to get a lot of traffic, and it would show up in Internet searches for its topics.

    Reply
  3. Translator

    If you just want non-French readers to be able to read your paper, wouldn’t it be enough to upload a translation to PhilPapers and label it as such?

    Reply
  4. Hilary Kornblith

    I have had a number of papers that were translated from English into other languages and then published in various journals. In each case, I was asked permission for this and the translated paper was then clearly labelled as such with the original publication cited. These cases are thus somewhat different from what is contemplated here. But I would see nothing wrong with submitting an English-language version of a paper published in another language as long as that fact about the paper was clearly flagged to the journal from the very beginning. The sad fact is that a great many Anglophone philosophers are monolingual, and a paper published in a language other than English will not be read by those philosophers.

    Reply
  5. David

    The only times I’ve seen recent articles published as translations was when a journal decided that the foreign-language article was something they wanted their readership to have access to. The editors of the journal would be the ones to reach out / commission the translation. Unsurprisingly, this seems to be uncommon.

    Reply
  6. Linguistic Diversity Fan

    Apart from the self-plagiarism concerns, I do think it would be better if academics published more in their own cradle languages and articles that people like were later translated and republished in other major languages.
    Would be curious to know how much of the analytic canon in article form has been translated from English to major world languages. I know most major books get translated into German, Mandarin, Spanish, etc., but what about seminal articles?

    Reply
  7. N

    I have previously discovered (by accident) that a paper I was reviewing had already been published elsewhere in another language. I reported it to the editor as a potential case of self-plagiarism that violated the journals Original Research requirement. The editor didn’t really know what to do, so I ended up writing a review (which recommended rejection for other reasons) and the article was rejected. I don’t know if they would have accepted it if the review had been positive. This was for an interdisciplinary social science journal. In any case, if you do submit, make sure to disclose it to the editor!

    Reply
  8. Laurence B. McCullough

    On self-plagiarism: there is no such concept. Mirriam Webster defines plagiarism as: “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source.” One cannot steal one’s own work. The correct concept under which republishing one’s work falls is duplication of publication. Duplication violates the requirement that scholarly work be original.

    Reply
  9. translations

    Some of my work has been translated and re-published in other languages, but I’ve never been the one to initiate the process. Who holds the copyright to the French edition? In my cases the initial publisher held the copyright, so permission had to be gained from them before a translated version could be published.

    Reply
  10. Southern Grad Candidate

    I’m together with Translator. In such cases, I believe you should previously reflect which venue would be of your best interest and choose one of them. Once you’ve chosen, if you wish to make the content accessible for other languages, translate it yourself or pay someone to do it. I have a paper published in a collection in my first language and I translated it to English, both (1) in case someone wants to use it for their own research and (2) because a recent paper of mine in English mentions it.

    Reply
  11. it’s complicated

    re Linguistic Diversity Fan
    I wouldn’t bother trying to publish in my cradle language. I left that linguistic community for very good reasons, one of which is “who you know is more important than how good you are.”
    This may not apply to your cradle language, but not all “diverse” places suit everyone who originated from those places.

    Reply
  12. Charles Pigden

    I have had one paper (a chapter in a collection) translated into about ten different languages and republished as part of the said collection. No issue at all so are as I can see as the whole thing is entirely above board. I have had one paper partially translated into French and published with due acknowledgement in a journal and another paper translated and published Polish again with due acknowledgement. I can’t see that there is problem here unless when applying for jobs or promotions you present them as distinct works rather than different versions of the same piece. That somebody thinks your work worth translating or publishing in another language (since we are not excluding self-translations) is a feather in your cap from a careerist point of view, but not as much of a feather as a new paper. Thus (declared) translations count for something but not as much as something new. If there is no dishonesty, there is no issue.

    Reply

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