What’s in a name? The politics of naming, power and symbolic violence in Chinese L2 classrooms

This article explores the socially and politically laden practices of assigning Chinese names to international students—a well-established yet under-researched phenomenon in China. Drawing on interview data with both 117 international students and 10 Chinese language teachers, I used a triad of concepts—linguistic hegemony, symbolic violence, and compliance/resistance—to explore why and how international students are given Chinese names, and how they experience this process. Teachers’ rationales centered on cultural identification, classroom management, and social integration, but these practices also reflected arbitrary power, control, and domination. Such ideologies were enacted through three main naming conventions: transliteration-based, meaning-oriented, and hybrid naming, each carrying forms of linguistic hegemony and symbolic power. While most students accepted their imposed names, some of them resisted by inventing alternatives, although these were at times odd or/and inappropriate. I argue for a more ethical, empathetic and dialogical approach to naming in Chinese and other second language (L2) education, as choosing, refusing, or reinventing names constitutes a reformulation of self that shapes students’ relationship with the target society. L2 teachers, therefore, need to remain reflexive rather than becoming “accomplices” or “perpetrators” in sustaining unequal power relations.