Lost in Lualand

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=student-names-in-language-classes

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790

From Barbars Phillips Long:

A Reddit thread beginning with a complaint from a student taking Spanish at a U.S. high school hinges on whether the teacher should call the student by his preferred name in English or translate it into Spanish. I never really thought about the practice of using or assigning Spanish names in Spanish class, or French names in French class, even though I did not have a French name in French class (possibly because my junior high French teacher was Puerto Rican and my high school teacher was a Hungarian refugee who had studied at the Sorbonne). But since I was in high school in the 1960s, sensitivity about names, naming, pronunciation of names, "dead names," and other assorted naming issues are a much more prominent part of advice/grievance columns and forums.

(Here's the Reddit thread.)

Most of my Chinese students have English names which, in many cases, they adopted or were granted already in elementary school, middle school, or high school, and over the years became quite fond of their English name. A minority staunchly cling to their Chinese names, and would consider it a betrayal of their ethnicity to switch to a foreign name.  Quite a few tell me that they switch to an English name because their teachers and classmates can't pronounce their Chinese names.  I should also mention that a large proportion of foreigners studying Chinese languages think it's cool to take a Chinese name, makes them feel more Chinese, and they stick to their Chinese for their whole life.  Often, one of the first things teachers of first-year Chinese do is endow their students with a Chinese name, which many of the students think imparts a Chinese personality / character to them.  My name, for example Méi Wéihéng 梅維恒 ("Plum Preserve / Maintain / Safeguard  Constant / Unchanging / Immutable"), thoughtfully bestowed upon me by Tang Haitao and Yuan Naiying, gifted Princeton teachers, corresponds well with the sound and meaning of my name.

Far fewer of my Japanese students adopt an English name, perhaps because Japanese names seem easier to pronounce than Chinese names (vowels and consonants are straightforward, no tones to contend with, can spell them readily in romaji, etc.)

Selected readings

• "A confusion of languages and names" (7/8/16)
• "War on foreign names in China" (6/22/19)

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=student-names-in-language-classes

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790