'Formatted' Identities: Current Status and Optimization of Chinese-Character Author Names in China's English-Language Journals

The phenomenon of "identity formatting", where Chinese scholars' names in Chinese characters are romanized into Pinyin, has led to dual predicaments of confusion in identity recognition and the weakening of cultural identifiers. This study selected 56 leading English-language journals included in the Excellence Action Plan as research objects and constructed a three-dimensional analytical framework of "policy-publishing-dissemination". Through methods such as official website information collection, journal article review, and multi-platform retrieval verification, this study systematically explored the current development status and practical characteristics of "author names in Chinese characters" in China's English-language scientific and technological journals, and proposed targeted optimization paths. The findings revealed that only 18 out of the 56 sample journals, accounting for 32.1%, have issued supportive policies related to "author names in Chinese characters". The policy descriptions are highly dependent on the templates provided by publishing institutions, with low levels of independent customization by the journals themselves. Among the journals where policies have been adopted, although the proportion of articles by Chinese authors in the 18 policy-supportive journals is generally high, indicating a strong potential demand for "author names in Chinese characters", only 2 journals actually presented such signatures, resulting in a policy implementation rate of less than 4%. In the dimension of dissemination effectiveness, while most current publisher platforms support Chinese character retrieval, major international citation databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed still cannot directly retrieve metadata with "author names in Chinese characters". Overall, the application of "author names in Chinese characters" in China's leading English-language journals is currently in a stage characterized by "policy support, low implementation in publishing, and existing barriers in dissemination", accompanied by such problems as unbalanced policy implementation and practical application, insufficient refinement of the author identity identification system, and prominent cross-platform technical constraints. In response to these issues, this study proposes optimization paths from three perspectives: journal editorial offices need to raise their service awareness, integrate "author names in Chinese characters" into the entire publishing process; publishing institutions should strengthen underlying technical support, standardize the encapsulation of metadata for "author names in Chinese characters" in accordance with the international JATS data standard; and industry competent authorities need to play a guiding role, incorporate the implementation of "author names in Chinese characters" into the evaluation indicators for journal service capabilities. This study points out that breaking the predicament of Pinyin "formatting" for Chinese scholars' names is not merely a technical issue, but a broader challenge tied to academic concepts and cultural confidence. The promotion of Chinese-character author names will effectively enhance the international recognizability of Chinese scholars' academic identities, strengthen their cultural identifiers, and restore a true, complete and culturally resonant academic portrait for Chinese scholars. At the same time, it will help China's English-language scientific and technological journals improve their author service capabilities and international influence, and demonstrate Chinese cultural confidence on the international academic publishing stage.