Submitting same article in two different languages???

[adel9216]

Hello everyone,

So my first first-authored article, in French, that I have submitted last September, is currently under review. I should have news (positive or negative) from the reviewers by April. My master's thesis supervisor suggested that I translate my article into English after receiving the comments from the reviewers. However, my current Ph.D. thesis director said that this is not something that academics are allowed to do (submitting the same article with the same content in two different languages).

Who's right in this case? Or maybe I have misunderstood what my master's thesis director meant by translating my article to English? I need to speak with her about this, but I would feel safer to submit something based on the same research, but that is substantially different in content and format.

What's the typical practice in this case in the social sciences?

[traductio]

Hello everyone,

So my first first-authored article, in French, that I have submitted last September, is currently under review. I should have news (positive or negative) from the reviewers by April. My master's thesis supervisor suggested that I translate my article into English after receiving the comments from the reviewers. However, my current Ph.D. thesis director said that this is not something that academics are allowed to do (submitting the same article with the same content in two different languages).

Who's right in this case? Or maybe I have misunderstood what my master's thesis director meant by translating my article to English? I need to speak with her about this, but I would feel safer to submit something based on the same research, but that is substantially different in content and format.

What's the typical practice in this case in the social sciences?

That seems like bad form to me to publish an article twice in different languages, unless you submit the English version as a translation (noting the original French publication in your cover letter to the editor), if you can find a journal that would accept it. I think that's a big if, however -- I can think of only one example of that happening, and it's Jacques Derrida.

[adel9216]

Hello everyone,

So my first first-authored article, in French, that I have submitted last September, is currently under review. I should have news (positive or negative) from the reviewers by April. My master's thesis supervisor suggested that I translate my article into English after receiving the comments from the reviewers. However, my current Ph.D. thesis director said that this is not something that academics are allowed to do (submitting the same article with the same content in two different languages).

Who's right in this case? Or maybe I have misunderstood what my master's thesis director meant by translating my article to English? I need to speak with her about this, but I would feel safer to submit something based on the same research, but that is substantially different in content and format.

What's the typical practice in this case in the social sciences?

That seems like bad form to me to publish an article twice in different languages, unless you submit the English version as a translation (noting the original French publication in your cover letter to the editor), if you can find a journal that would accept it. I think that's a big if, however -- I can think of only one example of that happening, and it's Jacques Derrida.

LOL.

Yeah... I think you are right. I can make the article significantly different because I had too much results to fit into one piece. I feel safer to submit something totally different. I don't know why she said this though.

[traductio]

Hello everyone,

So my first first-authored article, in French, that I have submitted last September, is currently under review. I should have news (positive or negative) from the reviewers by April. My master's thesis supervisor suggested that I translate my article into English after receiving the comments from the reviewers. However, my current Ph.D. thesis director said that this is not something that academics are allowed to do (submitting the same article with the same content in two different languages).

Who's right in this case? Or maybe I have misunderstood what my master's thesis director meant by translating my article to English? I need to speak with her about this, but I would feel safer to submit something based on the same research, but that is substantially different in content and format.

What's the typical practice in this case in the social sciences?

That seems like bad form to me to publish an article twice in different languages, unless you submit the English version as a translation (noting the original French publication in your cover letter to the editor), if you can find a journal that would accept it. I think that's a big if, however -- I can think of only one example of that happening, and it's Jacques Derrida.

LOL.

Yeah... I think you are right. I can make the article significantly different because I had too much results to fit into one piece. I feel safer to submit something totally different. I don't know why she said this though.

The way I think about it (I publish in English and French, too, although mostly in English) is to consider the audience I'll be reaching. In the past, I wrote about language politics in Canada, and as you can well imagine, anglophone and francophone readers have different enough interests and approaches that a translated article would have looked strange to the other language group, whichever that happened to be.

On the other hand, I have a friend who edits a bilingual journal, and I've proposed an article I wrote in French about the challenges of teaching English and French theorists in translation. I thought about asking him if he'd be interested in a translation, since my audiences would largely overlap, but it'd be something I'd do from the get-go.

[Parasaurolophus]

I can think of only one example of that happening, and it's Jacques Derrida.

I can think of a few in my field (one was my PhD supervisor), but they're all tops in the field. In all of those cases, the translated article is noted as a translation on the CV, rather than as a separate line. I'm pretty sure, however, that in all those cases the journals in question solicited a translation from the author (or pitched a translation, as the case may be).

I think you could publish a new article based on the old one, though. Especially once you have new material for it from the comments, new data, etc.

[Ruralguy]

Just write an article using the excess/new stuff.

In the mean time, I suppose it wouldn't hurt asking an editor or two whether or not they'd accept an article in translation.

That way, you might get two more articles out of this!

[Kron3007]

Just came across this and thought of this post.  Not vouching for the paper, and hope if is ok to post a links to academic articles here...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-020-03363-2

[Parasaurolophus]

Just came across this and thought of this post.  Not vouching for the paper, and hope if is ok to post a links to academic articles here...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-020-03363-2

Just FWIW my take is that the link is to pertinent material, and so it's perfectly appropriate.

[adel9216]

Just came across this and thought of this post.  Not vouching for the paper, and hope if is ok to post a links to academic articles here...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-020-03363-2

Wow, this article is perfect for my question! Thanks!

[apostrophe]

This practice is pretty common when the first language of a scholar is not widely spoken. I'd only do it with changes or as a translation, as has been recommended by others.