[Air-L] Problems for pseudonym in online identity study

[Emily Liu]

Hello All,

I am a Masters student in the Department of Foreign Languages and
Literature working on my thesis.
However, I have encountered a problem on the use of pseudonyms.

The site of my study is on a online forum-based interactive gaming site,
and I am focusing on how the forum-based (text) role players negotiate
various identities through their language use. Therefore, my participants
have multiple layers of identities and names -- real name, screen name, and
names of the characters they created.

To ensure the confidentiality of the participants, of course I will use
pseudonyms when presenting their real names and screen names in my thesis.
But I am not sure if I should use pseudonyms to replace the names of the
characters that my participants create, as those names sometimes have more
profound meanings to them than just a name, and may signal their change in
identity. Yet I am worried if I don't replace the names with pseudonyms, it
may somewhat influence my participants' rights to full confidentiality.

Please give me some advice as to how I can handle this issue.


Thank you.

--

Min-Ju Liu (Emily)

M.A. Student in Applied Linguistics

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Sun Yat-sen University