ABSTRACT

There has been a widespread connection of the issue of plagiarism to culture. In particular, there has been a tendency among some researchers and teachers who work with ESL/EFL students, especially Asian students from Confucian Heritage Culture societies, to adopt a cultural-conditioning view of plagiarism, based on an assumption that plagiarism on the part of such students is largely a result of their cultural background. The assumption in its operational version tends to become an essentialist position: that these students plagiarize because plagiarism is acceptable in their home culture. This chapter presents evidence to demonstrate that plagiarism has been consistently condemned throughout Chinese history. It argues that it is the continued lacking or inadequate formal education on intertextual practices based on rigorous standards in schools and universities in China that is largely responsible for a degree of conceptual confusion which may explain any proneness in Chinese students to plagiarism.