A Study Of Chinese College Students’ WeChat Names From The Perspective Of Gender Identity

The relationship between names and identity has been studied by academic scholars all the time.Many of them suggest that names are capable of mirroring such identities as ethnic identity,cultural identity,religious identity,and gender identity.Gender identity,as a significant part of identity,also draws scholars’ attention.In recent years,many scholars have focused their research on WeChat with its dramatic development and the great popularity.College students are one of the main groups who like to use WeChat.This thesis,taking Chinese college students’ WeChat names as research objects,based on Ashmore’s multifactorial gender identity theory in 1990,aims at finding out whether there are relationships between the students’ WeChat names and their gender identity.The paper focuses on the following three research questions.(1)Is there any relationship between college students’ gender and the forms of their WeChat names? If yes,what is the relationship between them?(2)Is there any relationship between college students’ gender and the contents of their WeChat names? If yes,what is the relationship between them?(3)What gender identity’s factors have an effect on Chinese college students’ WeChat names in terms of the form types and the content types?By analyzing the form and content types of 484 college students’ WeChat names of three universities in Kunming City,Yunnan Province,qualitatively and quantitatively,the main research findings are as follows.(1)The main form types of the WeChat names are: numbers,foreign language fonts,simplified Chinese characters,traditional Chinese characters,symbols,Chinese Pinyin,and mixed forms.The data show that in general there is no significant relationship between students’ gender and the form types of their WeChat names,butit can still be found that male college students prefer numbers and mixed types for their WeChat names while female ones like symbols and foreign language fonts.(2)The major content types of WeChat names are: personal names,animals or plants,nature,entertainments,emotions,humor,proper nouns,and other matters.The relationship between students’ gender and the content types of their WeChat names is apparently marked.Male students are more likely to choose personal names and names expressing feelings or emotions as the contents of their WeChat names,whereas female students are fond of the names consisting of animals,plants and proper nouns.(3)In terms of the forms of WeChat names,social attributes of gender identity result in a non-marked relationship between students’ gender and the forms of their WeChat names.Symbolic and stylistic behaviors as well as biological and physical attributes are the chief reasons why males prefer numbers and mixed forms as their WeChat names while females choose symbols and foreign language fonts as their WeChat names.As for the contents of WeChat names,the main reason why there is a salient relationship between students’ gender and the content types of their WeChat names is that there exist some differences between male and female students in the aspects of personal interests,social relationships or social communication and sex stereotypes.