Journal of International Students 205 2014 http://jistudents.org Volume 4 • Issue 3 Peer Reviewed Article ISSN: XXXXXXXXXXPrint/ ISSN: XXXXXXXXXXOnline Volume 4, Issue XXXXXXXXXX), pp XXXXXXXXXX...

Journal of International Students 205
2014 http:
jistudents.org Volume 4 • Issue 3
Peer Reviewed Article
ISSN: 2162-3104 Print/ ISSN: 2166-3750 Online
Volume 4, Issue 3 (2014), pp. 205-222
©Journal of International Students
http:
jistudents.org
Between Ethnic and English Names: Name Choice for Transnational
Chinese Students in a US Academic Community
Wenhao Diao, PhD
The University of Arizona (USA)
Abstract
This article explores how transnational Chinese students negotiate identity options through name
choice while studying in the US. Name choice can discursively index membership in various
communities. Drawing on theories of heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) and community of practices
(Lave and Wenger, 1991), this study examines how name choice becomes a site of identity
negotiation for transnational Chinese students who received their English names from ESL classes
in China. Using a qualitative approach, the analysis illustrates divergent patterns in name choice
among a group of transnational Chinese students within one academic community, and
demonstrates how membership in the community intersects with notions of cosmopolitanism to
affect their name choice. The findings shed light on the pedagogical practice of assigning English
names in ESL classrooms. They also call for future research to study the complex links between
Chinese students’ histories of engagement in such practices and their identity negotiation processes
when overseas.

Keywords: name choice, transnational Chinese students, community of practices, identity, English
as a second language
_______________________________________________________________________________
More and more Chinese students are pursuing education a
oad – especially in developed
Anglophone countries. Their sojourns overseas differ fundamentally from the typical study a
oad
experience of American students described in the applied linguistics literature (see a review in
Kinginger, 2009). In this article I use the term “transnational Chinese students” to refer to this
group. These transnational students
ing with them their imaginations of the developed world, and
they often experience complex processes of identity negotiation while a
oad (Fong, 2011). The
aim of this study is to explore such identity negotiation processes by examining a group of Chinese
students in one academic community in the US. Specifically the focus is on their choice between a
self-assigned English name and their Chinese given name. For sake of
evity and consistency, the
term “name choice” will be used in what follows to refer to the phenomenon in question.
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The students who study overseas and get an experience different than the American students.
206 Journal of International Students
Many educators and administrators in Anglophone countries may be quite familiar with the
phenomenon of transnational Chinese students a
iving on campus with self-assigned English
names in addition to their Chinese names. While in many cultures it is possible to have more than
one name over one’s lifespan, having multiple names simultaneously at a given time period is not
the usual situation for the majority of people. Scholars have investigated the use of multiple names
as a linguistic and social phenomenon. For instance, researchers have found that using alternative
names allows people to index and perform various identities in different communities, such as
“nicknames” among subcultural groups (Bie
ach & Birken-Silverman, 2007; Rymes, 1996) and
English names for “1.5-generation” immigrants (Thompson, 2006). However, scant attention has
een given to transnational Chinese students’ choice between their English and ethnic names.
Different from the Korean immigrants in Thompson’s study (2006) who adopted their English
names at an early age, these Chinese students often receive their English names during adolescent
years through ESL learning experience. Their name choice is likely to be a decision that involves
more conscious identity negotiation processes in specific contexts.
This study attempts to understand how a group of Chinese students chose between their two
names in a US academic community. To conceptualize identity in relation to two linguistically
different names, I draw on Bakhtin’s notion of “heteroglossia” (Bakhtin, 1981) and the community
of practice (CoP) theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991). From the Bakhtinian perspective, identity is an
option that is emergent from negotiations. In our complexly stratified societies, each individual has
multiple – and sometimes contradictory – identities available to them (Norton, 2000). The specific
identity option one makes in a given context must be a socially meaningful act to the community
and/or the individual (Pavlenko, 2002). In addition, meanings of these identity options are often not
consistent across different contexts. They are disputed, negotiated, and reconstructed (Hopper,
1987). Therefore, to capture the Chinese students’ processes of identity negotiation through their
name choices, it is important to understand how they interpret the different social nuances related to
their name choices in various cultural contexts and communities.
The CoP theory can help us further conceptualize their name choice in relation to the kind of
communities of which they are members. A CoP is a community in which members share a
common enterprise and social practices but not necessarily the same status. Identity thus should be
seen as membership in such a community. One’s membership status is shaped and in return shapes
their participation in the community’s practices. Thus, transnational Chinese students’ name choice
should be seen as practices situated in the specific communities that they belong to, such as the
academic community that is under investigation in this article.
The focus of the cu
ent study is the experience of identity negotiation through name choice
y a cohort of Chinese students in a graduate program in the US. Using ethnographic methods, I
examine how they understood the meanings of their two names in China and the US, and how they
make choices between their names within the community in the US. The findings are not intended
to be conclusive. Rather, the intention is to offer implications for researchers and language
educators to reflect upon how ideologies about target language communities can be shaped through
pedagogical practices such as assigning English names in ESL classrooms.
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English Speaking countries
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Theoretical Frameworks

The goal of the study is to examine how transnational Chinese students’ negotiate their identities by
choosing between names in two languages. Drawing from Bakhtin’s (1981) theory of
heteroglossia, each individual has multiple identities. Choice of identity through language is always
socially meaningful. Meanings of a certain identity choice are not static. They are fluid and
emergent from social actions – especially through linguistic practices (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005).
They are linked both to the past and to the individual speaker (Bakhtin, 1981). Identity choices
emerge from negotiations in ways that reflect individuals’ pasts and their assessment of the present
– which includes their interlocutors (Hopper, 1987). Because social meanings can be disputed,
identity choice reflects “a perpetual tension between self-chosen identities and others’ attempt to
position them differently” (Bakhtin, 1981). Pavlenko and Blackledge (2001) further theorize that
the relationship between language and identity options includes the following four aspects:
1) Linguistic and identity options are limited within particular socio-historic contexts …; 2)
Diverse identity options and their links to different language varieties are valued differently
and that sometimes it is these links rather than the options per se that are contested and
subverted; 3) Some identity options may be negotiable, while others are either imposed (and
thus non-negotiable) or assumed (and thus not negotiated) .…; 4) Individuals are agentive
eings … which allows them to resist identities that position them in undesirable ways,
produce new identities, and assign alternative meanings to the links between identities and
linguistic varieties. (p. 27)
The statement above illuminates the complexity of identity choices that are made possible by
different languages. These choices involve both subjectivity and inter-subjectivity. They are
connected to individuals’ histories and are negotiated with other people in specific contexts. When
Chinese students a
ive in Anglophone countries and join new academic communities, they
encounter cultural contexts where meanings of their name choice can no longer be the same.
To further understand transnational Chinese students’ name choice, I also follow the theory
of CoP (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and situate their identity negotiations within specific communities.
CoP refers to a group of people who share a common enterprise and ways of doing things (Lave &
Wenger, 1991). From this perspective, identity is defined as one’s membership status in a certain
community, which is formed through engagement in shared practices as well as the endeavor with
other members. These practices may include ways of talking, beliefs, values, and power relations
(Eckhert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992). Members of the same community also share understanding
concerning these practices and what they mean in their lives and for their community (Lave &
Wenger, 1991, p. 98). However, they often do not share the same level of participation and their
membership statuses differ (Eckert, 2000). Construction of a certain identity, therefore, is a process
of moving from legitimate peripheral participation towards central membership through
participating in these socially meaningful practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
The CoP theory has generated a profound impact on the line of research that examines
language and identity. Scholars have used it as an interpretive framework to study individuals who
have crossed national borders such as immigrants (e.g., Han, 2009; Norton, 2000) and overseas
sojourners (e.g., Gao, 2011; Jackson, 2008; Kinginger, 2008). Indeed, the act of border crossing
entails a spatial discontinuity and a temporal continuity from one’s past. For each individual who
has moved to a different country, the context within which meaning is interpreted includes not only
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Various identity and language options the students from China have when they go to English-speaking countries for graduations
208 Journal of International Students
the physical location but also his/her personal histories and those of their interlocutors. Individuals
therefore have to “reposition,” “reimage” and “refashion” their identities in the new environment
(Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001).
These theoretical perspectives contribute to the design of the cu
ent study. Based on these
theories, having two names can be seen as having different options that are socially meaningful for
transnational Chinese students. Their choices are reflective of the negotiations of identity that
emerge as they move from old communities in China to new ones overseas. The goal of this study
is to examine how a group of transnational Chinese students chose between their English and ethnic
names and negotiate their identity options.
The research questions are:
1) How did these transnational Chinese students choose between their names within an
academic community in the US?
2) How did they interpret the meanings of their name choice that emerged from their
experience and negotiate their identity options through name choice while studying in America?
Research Context
English in China and Chinese Students in Anglophone Countries

Since its Open Door policy in 1978, China has transformed itself from an economically isolated
country to an active participant of globalization. Its role in the global market has created a growing
demand for English-speaking professionals in various fields and the increasing popularity of
English language education in China (Graddol, 2006). English is cu
ently the most commonly
taught foreign language in China, with an estimated 20 million new English users each year
(Graddol, 2006, p. 95). Due to the socioeconomic gap between rural and u
an China, however,
English education is much more common in cities. Meanwhile, because English education was not
popularized until the late 1970s when China opened to the outside world, English names are also
found among young professionals and college students in u
an China.
Along with China’s participation in the global market, an increasing number of Chinese
students are also studying overseas to pursue both linguistic competence and first-hand knowledge
from the developed world (Graddol, 2006). Institutions in the US are particularly popular because
of their prestige and the possibility for them to pursue mobility by remaining in residence after
earning their degrees (Fong, 2011). According to the Open Doors report (2011), students from
China constitute the largest proportion of international students in the US. While studying in the
US, many of them undergo complex processes of identity negotiation, involving struggles and their
search for dual membership in the developed world and in their home country, China (Fong, 2011).
The focal event in this study is their name choice.
Naming Practices in China

Chinese names ca
y meanings through logographic representation (Lee, 1998). Parents often
choose Chinese characters that represent their wishes – what characteristics they hope to see and
what kind of person the baby should become. For instance, characters such as 伟 (wěi, “noble”), 敏
(mǐn, “clever”) and 勇 (yǒng, “
ave”) are among the most popular names in China. In addition, a
Chinese name can also encode information about gender, class and other identities through its
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How do they choose name
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Meaning of the name chosen
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What is the growth rate that has been seen across the last couple of decades?
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constitutive character(s). These meanings can sometimes be problematic, though. For instance,
conventional Chinese female names are often associated with physical features (e.g., “pretty”) or
their expected roles in the family (e.g., “awaiting a little
other”) (Lee, 1998).
Another important aspect of Chinese naming practices is that historically one individual
could have multiple names. An educated person typically had three names – a given name (míng),
a zì, and a hào – for different identity and pragmatic functions. Of the three only the míng was
given by one’s parents. The other two were often assigned by oneself or peers. This practice
allowed people to seek alternative names and resist certain identities that the original given name
imposed, such as undesirable gender stereotypes for women (Lee, 1998). The practice of having zì
and hào has become obsolete in China. However, the notion of a self-assigned name is not
unfamiliar to the majority of the population.
Chinese Names in English and English Names for Chinese

When being romanized into the English alphabet, the meanings that the characters represented
ecome lost. Chinese is a homophone-rich language, with on average about 11 characters sharing
one spelling (Tan & Perfetti, 1998, p. 168). A romanized Chinese name can only be somewhat
suggestive of the original meaning at the most, even to a native speaker. For instance, li can be a
girl’s name meaning “pretty” (丽), or a boy’s name meaning “strength” (力).

Meanwhile, the official romanization system used to transcribe Chinese names for people
from China, pinyin, is not always phonetically transparent to English speakers. The pinyin system
contains letters that are pronounced distinctively different from English letters. For example, in
pinyin “x” stands for alveolo-palatal fricative [ɕ] (which is absent in English), while “c” is alveolar
affricate [tsʰ] (which does exist in English but is represented using “ts” as in “cats”). This disparity
may cause difficulty for English speakers when pronouncing Chinese names such as Caixia, if they
lack basic knowledge of Mandarin phonetics.
Research Design
Field Site

The community in question was a graduate program in applied linguistics at an American university
located in a city in northeastern US. At the university, international students constituted 48% of the
total graduate student body. Within the program, the students and faculty members came from
various national and ethnic backgrounds. At the time of the study, half of the students were
transnational Chinese students.
This graduate program could be described as a typical CoP in a number of ways. First,
eing an academic program specializing in language education, it was defined by a common
endeavor and practices shared among its members (Lave & Wenger, 1991). All members
(professors and graduate students) shared the common goal of promoting language learning. They
also engaged in a range of activities to achieve this goal, including: 1) conducting research; 2)
teaching languages; and 3) attending administrative events such as department meetings. Secondly,
members of this CoP had different titles (e.g., students, professors, etc.). Their expertise in the
shared practices also varied. These differences make the program a CoP...