Research shows that societal structures and a person's agency are components for how people communicate their identity. building from this, an anthropologist conducted field work in indonesia to determine how chinese indonesian college students use chinese discourse to construct an identity for themselves in a college environment. the anthropologist collected data by interviewing their participants and had participants voice record their daily interactions with other college students. interview data and recorded conversations were transcribed and analyzed for patterns related to the "a" particle that is used in chinese language to add emphasis and enhance the strength of a statement. they also evaluated how a participant's social history and peer group interactions influenced these patterns.