Action Analysis in Virtual World:Case Study of Choosing Nicknames by Iranian Users in Yahoo Chat Rooms

The number of internet users is increasing in Iran every day. Due to special characteristics of the internet, it is effecting many aspects of our everyday life. One of these aspects is interpersonal communication. The internet users experience a new from of communication relatively free from their real life hegemonic values and norms. One of the most important communicative means is language. The names, which are chosen by members of a society for naming things, other people or themselves, are an important part of each language. Choosing a name should follow social rules that legitimate some names or forbid the others. The first step when entering the virtual world and chat rooms is choosing a name by the user. This article is concentrated on the names that are chosen in the chat rooms by Iranian users. Through this research, we aimed to make clearer the rules, desires and wishes that the name owners follow to choose their name. In this research, Pierre Bourdieu’s Idea about language, Erving Goffman’s theory in representation of self and Dramaturgical theory were used. In addition, “public sphere” presented by Jürgen Habermas was applied to describe some aspects of the internet enviroment as the context of acting. To find an answer for our research question, more than 600 nicknames were chosen. To analyze the names, qualitative content analysis method was used. Finally, the nicknames were categorized and a typology of the nicknames was presented. Then, we tried to explain each category with suitable theory. We found that nickname owners try to represent themselves as acceptable and pleasant for their audiences through the choice of their nicknames. Indeed, sometimes they mock real world norms, values and relations through choosing unusual or funny names.