Research Information System
THE LINGUIST : JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTS, vol.64, no.1, pp.24-25, 2025 (Non Peer-Reviewed Journal)
To understand why pseudo-retranslation is so problematic, we should consider that academic knowledge is collectively and accumulatively generated. However, this places some weighty responsibility on us as academic authors. We are expected to be epistemically virtuous and refrain from epistemic vices, as this is conducive to knowledge. Pseudo-retranslators take shortcuts to avail themselves of a source text instead of taking the more arduous interlingual and intertextual path to academic writing. The lack of curiosity about the accuracy of the presented knowledge in a pre-existing translation might cause a degradation of academic knowledge. This issue may lead to a corrupted academic ecosystem, where trust in scholarship is eroded, inaccurate scholarly information is traded, lines of textual interdependency are blurred, academic codes of behaviour are discounted, academic integrity is compromised, and academic/professional aptness is undermined.