Demographics
This study aims to understand how Chinese SA students use WeChat for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning while exploring which particular features of WeChat are beneficial to one’s English learning. Furthermore, the study also aims to investigate the relationship between English proficiency and digital social capital on WeChat.
Findings from the interviews were subsequently compared and contrasted with previous studies discussed in the literature review. The lack of gender diversity within the sample could be attributed to the fact that most Chinese SA students within this particular Irish university over the past 3 years have studied majors relating to education, and this is a field predominantly dominated by females (Fig. 2). Case in point, Zhang (2018) notes that in 2016, the class of graduates at East China’s Normal University (one of the biggest teacher training colleges in China) had a male-to-female ratio of 1–2.06.
Five of the seven interviewees noted that they lived in wealthy areas; however, three of these interviewees still described the English proficiency in their areas as “not good” or “bad.” However, this sentiment was mostly in reference to the older generations, as they are generally not able to speak English at all due to the fact that English education was outlawed within China in the past, particularly during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976 (Silver et al. 2002).
Most of the interviewees in the sample studied majors at an either undergraduate or postgraduate level related to English teaching or English translation. The exception in the sample was a Chinese student (2.Q) who had been a resident of Ireland for the past 5 years. Furthermore, all of the students had spent time studying abroad in an English-speaking country to some extent (a minimum of one semester). Moreover, the interviewees, due to their SA experience and background, represented an outlier group with higher proficiency in English than what would be considered average in China, as the lowest IELTS score among the interviewees was IELTS 6.5 and the highest was IELTS 7.5, respectively. To put this into perspective, Liao (2019) states that 5.72 was the average IELTS score among Chinese students within China in 2018.
Therefore, the sample does not reflect the realities of average university students in China as the sample consists of SA students who have specialized in English and inherently have access to more resources (Xu 2022). Furthermore, all seven interviewees desired to pursue further study or work in English-speaking countries. Hence, this should be taken into account while interpreting the findings.
WeChat usage by Chinese study abroad students
The primary purpose of this subsection is to outline how often the participants use WeChat, and particularly how often they use WeChat for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning.
Based on previous research, a large-scale survey in China found that 64% of people use WeChat every day, and 39% of the students in the survey used WeChat to exchange information about studying (Cheng and Dong 2017). According to Shi et al. (2017: 19), in total, “approximately 50% of users (in China) use WeChat for at least 90 min a day.” Furthermore, despite the gender disparity in this study presenting potential drawbacks, Hou et al. (2020: 1822) found that “there is no difference between male and female students for WeChat learning engagement.”
All seven interviewees in this study stated that they use WeChat daily. Moreover, among the two participants with the lowest usage times (one hour or less), WeChat remained an integral part of their everyday lives due to the instant messaging aspect and keeping in touch with friends and family (Fig. 3). On this point, participant 6.Q stated, “my grandparents are on WeChat, so if I want to talk to them, I would just video-call them on WeChat.” Furthermore, despite participant 5.M stating that they use WeChat for only one hour per day, their usage was still characterized by frequently checking the app multiple times daily; “I don’t actually spend a long time on WeChat, but I do open the app for a few seconds quite regularly just to check my messages and moments. Actually, I do this a lot.”
As for using WeChat for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning, the interviewees’ opinions were split in this regard. While four out of seven interviewees engage with English content daily on WeChat, the remaining three use WeChat more sporadically for EFL learning purposes. However, this sporadic usage was characterized by the three interviewees indicating their general disinterest in English studying during their free time unless it was in “preparation for an exam.”
Interviewees were also split regarding whether or not their use of WeChat for EFL purposes increased during the pandemic, with only two interviewees indicating that the pandemic afforded them an opportunity to use WeChat for EFL learning further. One interviewee in particular stated,
“Yes, actually. Uhm - pandemic time is my, you know, I would say peak time for me to learn English on WeChat because that's the time when I started to realize how helpful WeChat was. Like there are really a lot of resources which are free and which are quite beneficial for you to learn English.” (Interviewee 3.S)
Meanwhile, another interviewee indicated why their usage did not increase,
“No, I did not learn English on WeChat more often during this pandemic time. Actually, I used other learning apps, but I don’t know, I don’t really think of WeChat when I want to study.” (Interviewee 7.X)
The account from participant 7.X above demonstrates that even though all interviewees indicated that they had both used WeChat to learn English and perceived WeChat as a useful English learning resource, not all participants fully engaged with the symbolic meaning of WeChat as an English learning tool. In a further example, participant 2.Q stated,
“For Chinese people, we mainly use WeChat, you know to contact, to talk with people. And you have all your friends on WeChat and this is not easy to use one app both for studying and communicating.” (Interviewee 2.Q)
2.Q’s sentiment that WeChat should be perceived more rigidly as purely a social media app was repeated by three other participants (1.T, 4.L, and 7.X), and when asked what features could be implemented within WeChat to assist English learning, 1.T replied, “it does not really need any changes. WeChat is a social media app, not a learning app.”
This complex perception of WeChat is echoed in Cheng and Dong’s (2017) study, who found that while students in both China and Sweden held positive attitudes toward the use of apps and mobile learning regarding learning languages, students did not hold any beliefs that there was an obvious relationship between WeChat and one’s learning interests. These findings demonstrate that while WeChat is regarded as beneficial to learning in previous research (Cheng and Dong 2017; Shi et al. 2017) and by all seven participants in this study, the influence of WeChat’s objective meaning as a social media app could represent a pertinent factor in whether or not it is used for EFL learning to a greater extent in the future. To elaborate on this point, the wider adoption of WeChat for learning English would require “routine cooperation, collective action, and shared experiences” (Segre 2019: 383). The subsequent sections explore why participants are hesitant to engage with WeChat’s symbolic purpose as an English learning tool.
The walkthrough method
This first section of the app walkthrough chapter will briefly discuss the objective features and mechanisms of WeChat that may be used for the symbolic purpose of English learning. In order to achieve this aim, the app walkthrough method by Light, Burgess, and Duguay (2018) was undertaken. Firstly, as an introduction, Fig. 4 details the WeChat features that the interviewees deemed useful for EFL learning purposes; however, it was only possible to discuss the top four most used functions in-depth within this study.
Regarding the validity of the walkthrough method, it should be noted that the walkthrough that the author conducted was underpinned by interviewee data, as during the interview process, interviewees were asked to share their screen with the author and detail how they access the features on WeChat which assist them with EFL learning. Furthermore, while the functionality of WeChat is comparatively much more limited outside of China, all seven interviewees stated that the features of WeChat that assisted them with EFL learning were unaffected while in Ireland. Furthermore, the author had access to all of the WeChat features the interviewees identified and was, therefore, able to conduct the app walkthrough accurately.
When discussing the “vision” or “objective” meaning of an app, it involves the “purpose, target user base, and scenarios of use” (Light et al. 2018: 889; Chen et al. 2020: 3). As clearly referenced in WeChat’s name and its emphasis on chatting, WeChat represents a social media app that’s objective vision is intended to connect friends and family members. Since its inception, WeChat has evolved its image into an “all-purpose app” that is not “just” social media (Montag et al. 2018: 2); however, the features that have contributed to WeChat’s image change are those provided by third parties such as “official accounts” or “mini-programs” and must be consciously searched for/downloaded by users. This demonstrates that users have considerable agency in regard to diverting from WeChat’s objective meaning as a social media app and consequently shaping their desired subjective meaning of WeChat or its respective functions.
There are four main pages on WeChat, which can be seen in Fig. 5, including Chats, Contacts, Discover, and Me. Two of the four pages (Chats and Contacts) are concerned with messaging and connecting with friends, further illustrating that the main premise and objective vision of WeChat is chatting. Therefore, within the scope of symbolic interactionism, using WeChat for English learning purposes is a symbolic meaning given to the app and not part of its central vision or intended meaning (Segre 2019). An in-depth view of WeChat’s beneficial EFL learning features that the Chinese SA students highlighted will be discussed in the proceeding sections.
Official accounts
Within the findings, one feature that the interviewees unanimously regarded as beneficial to English learning was “official accounts.” Official accounts on WeChat upload articles and are described as “a China-based marketing platform that acts as a complete brand hub to gather followers, send them targeted content, and push them marketing and service notifications” (Wechatwiki 2019).
Official accounts allow users to construct a personal version of the WeChat app and engage with content that users must consciously search for depending on their preferences. On this point, official accounts are dedicated to a wide variety of interests, such as news, cooking, celebrities, and education.
When asked about the effectiveness of official accounts as an EFL learning feature, one of the interviewees stated,
“Yeah, so I subscribed to a lot of official accounts for learning English, like there are many, many official accounts which are, you know, professional in teaching English. Like there are people who teach you how to read The Economist in a more efficient way, and that’s for free. So yeah, I often read some official accounts’ articles to learn English.” (Interviewee 3.S)
In order to find a particular official account, there are several methods, for example; users must already know the name of the account, type in a keyword(s) that relates to what they are looking for in the search, a friend shares the account with them, or users scan a QR code which leads to the account’s page (Figs. 6, 7, 8, and 9).
One interviewee indicated the method she uses to find EFL official accounts,
“You can probably (search) for ‘English learning accounts’ and ‘English blogger,’ and you (can) probably see the recommendations and see which official account they recommend and just follow them. I think that’s the best way.” (Interviewee 2.Q)
Due to the presence of official accounts, WeChat offers users a free and simplistic way to engage with English content on a daily basis. For example, the official account “The Economist” translates news stories from Chinese into English and helps English learners develop a wider vocabulary. All interviewees cited this particular account as a useful resource for learning English as seen in Fig. 10.
The findings from this section highlight that official accounts are regarded as highly beneficial to EFL learning among all participants. As previous research suggested, the effectiveness of WeChat official accounts for English learning has only been discussed narrowly in regard to tweet-based writing (Zhang et al. 2021). Moreover, due to the fact that the interviewees engage with official accounts privately with no need to perform in the view of “observers” (Goffman 1959: 22), no drawbacks or negative social connotations in regard to engaging with official accounts were alluded to by any participants.
The star function
The participants also noted the importance of using the star function in relation to official accounts. The star function allows for official accounts that users are particularly interested in to appear higher up on their timelines. As mentioned in Chen and Wang’s (2022) respective walkthrough of official accounts related to COVID-19 information, WeChat uses an algorithm that favors state accounts and verified accounts that mainly consist of celebrities and large brands; however, despite the WeChat algorithm favoring certain accounts and attempting to shape users’ subjective meaning of WeChat to a certain extent, users still retain agency as they have the final decision in regard to following a particular account. However, even if a user follows an official account of their own choosing, there is no guarantee that any of the content from that account will be seen by the user due to WeChat’s algorithm.
On this point, all seven interviewees noted that if they did not “star” EFL learning official accounts on WeChat, they would subsequently be lost in the shuffle among the other accounts they follow. Therefore, the star function highlights a feature that all participants use to retain user agency in shaping their own subjective meaning of WeChat as an English learning tool. One interviewee in particular stated,
“Yeah, I use the ‘star’ function to highlight those useful official accounts which can access learning English, because if you don't ‘star’ it, it will be overwhelmed - you know it will be overwhelmed by other official accounts. So, if you ‘star’ it, it just shows on the top, and you never miss the articles it sends you.” (Interviewee 3.S)
While not reported in previous research, the star function is, therefore, necessary for WeChat users who wish to use WeChat to learn English, as all interviewees indicated that they had used the star function to prioritize EFL content (Fig. 11). Moreover, much like official accounts, the interviewees did not report any drawbacks or negative social connotations when using the star function.
Chatting for English learning
As mentioned in the literature review, Cheng and Dong (2017), Shi et al. (2017), and Wang and Crosthwaite (2021) explored the effectiveness of WeChat’s instant messaging features in relation to English learning. However, this section aims to provide greater detail in regard to the multitude of ways in which users can use WeChat’s objective chatting function for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning.
Within WeChat, on the screen labeled “chats,” users can view all of the conversations that they previously had with their friends. “Chats,” therefore, represents the main page of WeChat as it is the first screen that users are greeted with when they open the application. While chatting is WeChat’s objective meaning, all seven participants unanimously stated that they had used the chatting function of WeChat for the symbolic purpose of English learning at some point and perceived it as a useful EFL learning function.
As shown in Figs. 12 and 13, when users open a new chat on a freshly downloaded version of WeChat, they have a variety of objective functions to choose. One can send pictures, files, and voice messages to other users. Furthermore, users may conduct voice and video calls.
When describing the benefits of the instant messaging function for English language learning, one interviewee indicated,
“Oh, there are lots of ways we can help each other on WeChat. We can message each other with questions, send resources, and if we have a foreigner friend - we can call them to practice English.” (Interviewee 1.T).
Furthermore, three out of seven interviewees indicated that they are friends with their English teachers on WeChat and that their teachers use this platform to answer any questions the students pose and provide learning materials.
In the study conducted by Cheng and Dong (2017), 95% of students found that having a class group chat with a teacher present was beneficial for English learning, and within this study, when describing how her teacher used WeChat to contact her, one interviewee stated,
“Due to Covid, the teacher could call me, carry out some activities and pass some information through the chat, and he would contact me (privately) a lot, but - he would mainly use our group to survey some information because it's more efficient.” (Interviewee 4.L)
When asked if she communicates in the class group chat often, she replied,
“Not really. We are all very quiet in the group apart from the teacher. He is the one who speaks. Even if I had a question, I would not ask in the group, I may just message my classmate (privately).” (Interviewee 4.L)
Another interviewee who is a member of an English class group chat had a similar response when asked if they engage with the group chat,
“No, we tend to be shy. There are a couple of students who always speak, but it is a bit strange. I don’t know. The Chinese way is to be quiet. The students who speak must want us to think they are smart, but I don’t think so (laughs) - I just read the information the teacher sends.” (Interviewee 1.T)
Moreover, a further interviewee stated that the objective meaning of instant messaging for communicative purposes could distract the user from the symbolic purpose of learning English,
“And since many Chinese people use WeChat to communicate, sometimes you are easily bothered by others sending messages to you while you're learning English.” (Interviewee 3.S)
However, in order to address the issue raised by interviewee 3.S, users could turn off their message alerts during the time they allocate to English learning on WeChat and prevent the objective meaning of WeChat as a social media application from causing a distraction (shown in Fig. 14). Furthermore, the drawback indicated by 3.S could apply to all English learning applications (not just WeChat) as long as message notifications were enabled on their device.
While both 1.T and 4.L indicated that group chats with their teachers present were useful, both interviewees admitted to not fully engaging with the group chats for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning and using it to their full potential. Furthermore, both interviewees refer to the possible Confucian connotations and “Chinese way” of quietness (Xie 2010; Li and Wegerif 2014) and respect for their teacher (Littrell 2005; Zhu and O’Sullivan 2022) as causing this lack of engagement. Moreover, interviewee 1.T indicated that the students who spoke and engaged with the English language class group chat might be trying to perform themselves in the group in order to be perceived as smarter and more impressive.
From a symbolic interactionist perspective, despite regarding them as a useful EFL learning resource, the interviewees’ symbolic meanings and engagement with group chats were influenced by their perception of other users’ actions (Chen et al. 2020). Furthermore, 1.T indicated that her classmates’ performances of their identity in the group chat had a negative influence on her (the observer) which resulted in her referring to the performance as “strange.” These negative connotations of performing the self as an EFL learner resulted in some participants not fully engaging with WeChat for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning (McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase 2016).
However, within the context of privately messaging friends or classmates, as stated by interviewee 4.L, there were no such negative connotations, thus demonstrating the pertinence of context (private messaging or group chats), positive experience (distraction caused by others’ messages), and associating negative connotations with performing the self (showing off to appear smart) in regard to fully engaging with the instant messaging aspect of WeChat for English learning.
WeChat moments as an EFL learning tool
The final objective function of WeChat which has symbolic capabilities as an English learning feature is the ability to post “moments.” WeChat moments allow users to share text, pictures, media, and articles with their entire circle of friends, and users can interact with each other by either liking or writing a comment underneath a particular moment (Figs. 15, 16 and 17).
Five out of seven interviewees perceived WeChat moments as having promise as an English learning resource, and one interviewee stated,
“Oh, I guess moments could be helpful too. I haven’t done this for English yet, but if I need help with an issue, I can post a moment asking my circle of friends for help - they can answer me under the moment.” (Interviewee 5.M)
Another interview stated,
“I also think moments can be used (for English learning). We can follow what our teacher posts, or we can share some information with our friends or ask questions.” (Interviewee 2.Q)
Interviewee 1.T mentioned that certain English learning apps automatically post moments on users’ WeChat timelines that showcase their learning progress and state how many words they have learned on a particular day. While this practice allows English learning apps to advertise themselves on WeChat for free, one interviewee stated that the apps incentivize EFL learners to post moments on WeChat,
“If you allow the app to post updates on your timeline, you earn coins which can be used in the app. If you collect enough coins, you can get the full app for free and unlock more functions.” (Interviewee 1.T)
Therefore, publicly presenting oneself as an English learner on WeChat presents potential benefits across various EFL learning applications.
However, similar to the chatting function mentioned previously, posting WeChat moments has social connotations that involve users performing their English learning identity in view of observers. As Hou et al. (2020: 1823) state, “WeChat is a window for people to demonstrate themselves, so people would like to show their good sides to others.” Furthermore, according to McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase (2016: 200), the ability to openly present the self on social media directly translates to the engagement and “quality of user experience” that one has with a particular social media application. In terms of the interviewees’ attitudes toward posting English content via WeChat moments, their attitudes differed in this respect. When asked whether or not they would post content related to their experiences of learning English, one participant stated,
“I don’t really like to share my learning, showing how many (English) words (I learned) today - And for me, I don’t, I don’t do that. I don’t know. It’s probably not too good ‘cause I don’t wanna show people, like OK, I’m doing this. I don’t know. Probably for some people, but not for everyone.” (Interviewee 2.Q)
Another interviewee said similar,
“I don’t post any English resources and ask questions on my moments. I know it’s not - it’s not very good (to not use this feature). I just read my friend’s and teacher’s moments instead when they speak about English stuff.” (Interviewee 5.M)
However, one interviewee mentioned that others posting about their English learning experiences motivated her to improve,
“I never think it is bad because even - even if the people are just bragging about the certificates, I just think, well, they are really somebody and – and I think I like to see people share their experiences because I could see more about what my peers are doing, so I won’t be left behind, yeah.” (Interviewee 4.L)
In terms of uploading moments on WeChat that are merely written in the English language and which do not mention their learning experiences, four out of seven interviewees were hesitant to perform this action due to their friends and family in China. In order to explain, one notable aspect of Confucian culture is that parents are shown a greater amount of respect, and there are greater expectations for children to live close to their parents and take care of them in their old age (Fan 2006). This tradition in China is called filial piety (xiào孝), and a common Chinese phrase, when translated to English, reads as, “raising a child offers (the parent) insurance in old age” (yǎng ér fáng lǎo养儿防老). The main aspects of filial piety consist of respect for parents, obedience, loyalty, material provision, and caring for parents when they are older, and this can also extend to older family members (Zhan and Montgomery 2003; Yeh et al. 2013). Furthermore, despite the interviewees’ status as SA students and being regarded as neoliberal subjects in the literature (Xu 2022), a number of interviewees still exhibited Confucian tendencies in regard to posting on WeChat.
On this point, participant 7.X noted that while she does sometimes post moments in English due to the fact it is “more simple to express certain words” in the English language rather than Chinese, she also noted,
“If I write in English, my mom or my cousin will ask me what the sentence means, and they will be like, ‘why are you writing in English? You are Chinese’. So, I don’t write in English really because of that.” (Interviewee 7.X)
Furthermore, when interviewee 7.X was asked whether or not her parents or relatives could just use the translation function of WeChat, she noted, “Yeah, that’s true. I don’t know. I just think it is more important that they understand, so I should just write in Chinese, yeah.”
Another interviewee also stated the importance of her family being able to understand her WeChat posts,
“It’s just not good, ‘cause their English is not too good, and you always choose something they don’t understand. I have a cousin, and I think I posted just one sentence in English or something, and then he commented saying, ‘Why don't you speak Chinese? It's really annoying.’ So, after that, I just stopped there.” (Interviewee 2.Q)
In regard to having an impact on their “observers” (Goffman 1959: 22), Chinese SA students draw criticism from family members when they perform their identity as English language learners. This has consequently caused some interviewees to stop posting in English on their WeChat moments despite identifying that WeChat moments are helpful for EFL learning. Therefore, interviewees were found to not fully engage with WeChat moment’s symbolic meaning due to not freely performing themselves in front of observers (McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase 2016). Instead, participants preferred to read their English teachers’ WeChat moments comprising articles or learning materials they publicly shared. This subsequently underpins symbolic interactionist theorizing by Jones and Volpe (2011: 426), who stated that one’s social networks “generate meanings” for users on a particular app.
However, while not mentioned by the participants in this study, as seen in Fig. 18, one has the option to hide WeChat moments from other users by preselecting which users can see their moments, and this particular feature was mentioned in the study by Huang et al. (2020).
As a practical suggestion for Chinese EFL learners, rather than users allowing their symbolic use and engagement of WeChat moments for the purpose of learning to be affected by notions of family influence, digital social capital (as will be mentioned in the next section), negative experience (family influence was subsequently regarded as negative in this study), and performance of the self (participants in this study were hesitant in posting moments in English due to the factors mentioned), users could instead choose which observers can view their WeChat moments.
Therefore, to conclude the walkthrough section and RQ.1, the participants identified instant messaging, official accounts, the star function, WeChat moments, mini-programs, and the translation function as objective WeChat features which could be used for the subjective purpose of learning English. To touch upon RQ.1a, despite a number of participants highlighting issues that apply to social media as a whole regarding EFL learning on WeChat, such as the potential for distractions, negative social connotations, and an algorithm controlling which accounts are recommended to users, these represent drawbacks with WeChat’s objective meaning. However, WeChat has a fluid role and allows the user to retain agency in controlling their perceived subjective meaning of WeChat as an English learning tool. On this point, users must make conscious decisions to deviate from WeChat’s objective vision and optimize it for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning. To elaborate, WeChat allows users to star their favorite official accounts to ensure they see the content they want, disable message notifications to prevent distractions, and limit which users can see their English-related WeChat moments. Therefore, this walkthrough of WeChat highlights features of WeChat that can be used for English learning that have not yet been explored in previous research. Moreover, this study also details how to avoid the various socio-material drawbacks present within a number of WeChat’s objective features when used for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning.
English proficiency’s link to digital social capital
As already established in the literature review, “English is a type of cultural advantage enjoyed by students of privileged backgrounds in China” (Liu and Chiang 2019: 10). In regard to exploring how English proficiency is linked to higher-class and socioeconomic status, Bourdieu’s theory of social capital and Julien’s (2015) concept of digital social capital will be discussed. All seven interviewees drew links between English proficiency and socioeconomic status, with the underlying themes being that, in order to have high proficiency in English, an individual or their family must be wealthy, have spent time abroad in an English-speaking country, have paid for a private tutor/private classes, or have attended school in a Tier-1 city in China. On this point, when asked whether high proficiency in English is related to wealth in China, one interviewee responded by stating,
“So yeah, higher proficiency does have something to do with, you know, wealth in China because the people - eh, I would say the developed areas have those wealthy people who can access a lot of resources to improve their English level, like there are many international schools in highly developed areas. Also, they can access many foreigners who can be their friends or their teachers like yeah. So - yeah, I think it's highly related.” (Interviewee 3.S)
This phenomenon of wealth being advantageous for English proficiency and education in China can be explained by Bourdieu’s theory of social capital, as the education system assumes the “possession of social capital.” Therefore, students from lower classes or those who have less access to resources are ultimately at a disadvantage which in turn leads to it being “very difficult for (them) to succeed in the education system” (Sullivan 2002: 145).
Considering that all the interviewees agree that high proficiency in English is linked to wealth and social capital in China, it is now pertinent to determine whether performing one’s English proficiency on WeChat is regarded as a form of digital social capital. When discussing digital social capital, Julien (2015: 365) indicated that the exchange of digital social capital online via memes, posts, or pictures, “cement the things exchanged as permanent tokens of group membership, and the exchanges also reproduce the group.” WeChat comprises objective functions such as messaging and posting WeChat moments that involve engaging with others and performing the self. Moreover, they also have symbolic meanings as EFL learning features, according to the participants in Fig. 4.
In order to determine whether interviewees believed that English learners’ performances of their identity constituted forms of digital social capital on WeChat, interviewees were asked about their perception of publicly posting content related to learning English. One interviewee stated,
“We don’t usually post our English learning stuff on WeChat moments, yeah. I think maybe it’s because a part of us feels shy to do so. Like people know, people know that you are learning English, and it feels like you are showing off sometimes, as people would sometimes think like that, so yeah.” (Interviewee 3.S)
Here 3.S admits that publicly performing their English proficiency online or merely mentioning their English learning is something that they fear may be interpreted as “showing off.” This sentiment was repeated by another interviewee who stated,
“Even though we all learn English - if I saw a Chinese person write in English on their WeChat moments, I would think it is a little strange. Like they are trying to impress someone. We generally don’t do that.” (Interviewee 6.Q)
Considering that all the interviewees established earlier that English proficiency has strong links with wealth in China, excerpts from interviewees 3.S and 6.Q indicate that English proficiency is used as a means to show off, or to try and impress others, thus demonstrating that it can indeed be interpreted as a form of digital social capital on the WeChat app and thus addresses RQ.2 in the process. Moreover, interviewee 1.T indicated that she negatively perceived her classmates who performed their role as English learners in front of others in order to appear “smarter” and referred to them as “strange.” By applying Julien’s (2015: 367) concept of digital social capital, the “desire of individuals for recognition motivates their distinguishing actions as they exist in social space.” While all the interviewees possess membership as EFL learners, they were able to recognize when other users in the same social group performed distinguishing actions on WeChat to make their digital social capital more apparent and achieve greater recognition. Case in point, the specific actions consisted of publicly performing their English proficiency or identity as an English learner for others to see. Hence, in the views of four out of seven interviewees, the performance of English proficiency should be confined to the “backstage” where no observers can see (Goffman 1959: 69) and should be a “suppressed” action in the words of Goffman.
This underpins previous findings by Yang (2007: 12), who found that an online performance of English proficiency is linked with “showing off” in China due to the links between English education and socioeconomic status. Moreover, the findings of this study which explore the negative aspects of possessing digital social capital are pertinent, as Jafari and Moharrami (2019: 8) indicate that the majority of previous research on digital social capital merely focuses on the positive outcomes and “prosocial,” “beneficial functions for sociability.”
Therefore, while five participants broadly regarded WeChat moments as helpful for EFL learning, by using the theoretical framework (Fig. 1), the interviewees associated performing their English proficiency and identity as English learners in front of “observers” with negative connotations of “bragging” which resulted from associations with digital social capital (Goffman 1959: 22). This consequently resulted in four out of 7 participants stating that one should not publicly perform as an English learner on WeChat. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, both the “meaning” that the participants attached to WeChat moments and their attitudes toward performing their identities was directly influenced by their social networks (Jones and Volpe 2011: 426). Therefore, to firmly address RQ.1a, due to potential observers creating negative meanings for participants regarding publicly performing as an EFL learner on WeChat, the participants did not fully engage with the WeChat moments feature for the symbolic purpose of learning English, as the ability to freely perform oneself on an app is directly linked to whether one engages with an app for a particular purpose (McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase 2016).
The findings, therefore, highlight that EFL learning on WeChat takes place amid a complex socio-material backdrop in which the English language is perceived as a form of digital social capital and results in connotations of higher class and showing off. This study advances the understanding of why Chinese SA students may or may not choose to fully engage with a particular feature of WeChat for the symbolic purpose of EFL learning and highlights the challenges that language practitioners must overcome regarding using WeChat as an EFL learning tool. Furthermore, along with digital social capital, the theoretical framework implies that filial obligations to obey and respect parents and older family members also prevented some participants from publicly performing their roles as EFL learners or fully engaging with WeChat moments as an English learning tool. However, while perceptions of digital social capital and filial obligations present deep-rooted societal challenges in regard to EFL learning on social media and WeChat in particular, the walkthrough section highlighted a number of WeChat features that users can use to circumvent the perceived negative social connotations associated with WeChat’s objective meaning as a social media application. Therefore, this article demonstrates how users can engage with WeChat’s symbolic meaning as an EFL learning tool to a greater extent, and future research in this area is encouraged.