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Czakó Szabina

The interaction between Culture and Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious issue, especially in education. At the university level, students

are required to formally cite their research papers and, in this situation, it is frequent that some

students commit plagiarism. Several researchers argue that the problem of plagiarism in

education is not a universal phenomenon but it is a culture specific one. In my essay I will

discover the relationship between plagiarism and culture. Also, I will try to find out, how

teachers can prevent plagiarism among their students.

Firstly, I would like to notice, as I will specify different culture’s characteristic among

others, that how important the understanding of culture. We should avoid stereotyping as a

culture composed of individuals who are not alike. For instance, one’s can have different

family background, previous learning experience or aptitude. People can not be categorized

by their culture.

Sowden (2005) claims that plagiarism exists because the established notions of

plagiarism differ in the West and the East. For example, in the Asian culture, most of the

people still believe in the traditions of reproducing Confucian teaching. Also, ‘the communal

ownership of knowledge’ is an acceptable thing as if somebody use a common and applied

knowledge in his essay without giving references that is not a plagiarism. These means that

plagiarism does not have as negative significance as in the Western one. Liu (2005) agrees

with Sowden that memorization and rote learning are common learning strategy in the East,

but he deny that this would be wilfully. Plagiarism is more regarded as language and writing

development problems than a cultural one. What is more, while Sowden (2005) says that for

Japanese students group work mean copying ideas from others, Liu (2005) comments that in

the West, the encouragement of group work is more common than in the East: ‘Western
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students also have to share their work and knowledge, and sometimes their assignment asks

them to turn in just one joint project report.’

Copying other’s ideas is not allowed or encouraged in Chine, but the relationship to a

text or learning may differ. For Western people, one’s own thoughts and creativity are more

important compare with the Asian Confucian teaching (Pennycook, 1996.).

Bamford and Sergiou (2005) distinguish between intentional and unintentional

plagiarism. They argued that most of the student plagiarize intentional because of time

pressure or because that copying from textbooks does not count as plagiarism in their country.

In their research, they have found out that most of the Chinese students had not heard of

plagiarism before going to the university in the UK. As for unintentional plagiarism, some

students believe that copying from several different sources and then combine them to one is

not plagiarism. This means that they can not make a difference between paraphrased and

plagiarised text. In addition, it is common that students do not know how to cite correctly. As

Carrol (2004) argues against stereotyping Japanese students as they do not have critical

thinking; the main reason why Japanese students plagiarize is the lack of language proficiency

and not the absence of critical thinking.

According to Sowden (2005), teachers may can never prevent entirely plagiarism, but

oral presentation can be a good solution as it is simpler and more direct, natural. Students

must use their own words and they paraphrase the original text even if they use others ideas.

Also. teachers should encourage students to adopt the norm of the host culture. Bamford and

Sergiou (2005) maintain that teachers should test their student’s knowledge about plagiarism

to be sure they understand it. For those, who used to live in a culture where plagiarism was

not a serious issue, it can be difficult to break out from this routine. To help them, preparing a

handout, which explains why plagiarism is an immoral thing, is also a good alternative.
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In conclusion, the question of the study was: Is there a relationship between plagiarism

and culture? The answer is yes, but this relation is not clear. Previous educational practises or

lack of language proficiency are primarily responsible for plagiarism among cultural

differences. I prefer to say that education and culture related to each other. For example, in the

UK, where people are strict with the question of plagiarism, students are warned and taught

for the correct citing at an early age while in other culture there is only a little or no writing

training in high school. For this reason, plagiarism is not limited for Asian students only.
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References
Bamford, J. and Sergiou, K. (2005), International Students and Plagiarism: An Analysis of the
Reasons for Plagiarism among International Foundation Students
Carroll, M. (2004) ‘Japanese students cannot think critically. Or can they?’ Essential Teacher
1/3: 54–56.
Liu, D. (2005) Plagiarism in ESOL students: Is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit?
ELT Journal. 59 (3): 234-41. doi: 10.1093/elt/cci043
Pennycook, A. (1996) ‘Borrowing others’ words: text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism’.
TESOL Quarterly 30/2: 201–230.
Sowden, C. (2005). Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education
abroad. ELT Journal, 59 (3), 226-233. doi: 10.1093/elt/cci042