Q: Is translating and submitting my Japanese publication to an English journal a fraud?
I made a presentation at an international symposium held in Korea, based on my Japanese article (in humanities) published domestically. After that, I was invited to submit my manuscript to an English journal issued by the organization that held the symposium. But I was told that the already published article was not acceptable. Would translating my manuscript to English and submitting it to the journal be regarded as a fraud?
Translating a manuscript published in one language into another language for publication is not a fraud; it is an acceptable practice if certain conditions are met. Please refer to the ICMJE guidelines on Acceptable Secondary Publication here.
Publishing in another language is often done for wider dissemination of the research. In your case though, what seems to have happened is that the English journal may have found your study interesting and relevant for its readers, but may have a policy against publishing previously published work, even if from a different language.
You may try writing to the journal asking them about this and if you could modify the manuscript to some extent to make it feasible for publishing in their journal. If they agree, you would also need to get the approval from the original Japanese journal and clearly specify in the English article that this is a secondary publication. However, from what I understand, the English journal might not easily agree to this. Nevertheless, all the best.
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This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage