Metapragmatics of mobility ADRIENNE LO AND JOSEPH PARK University of Waterloo National University of Singapore ABSTRACT This introduction presents a framework for analyzing the semiotic dimen- sions of mobility. Drawing upon the notion of pathway (Wortham & Reyes 2015), it examines how mobility is facilitated by semiotic processes that link linguistic emblems with speaker images across time and space (Agha 2007). It focuses on the circulation of discursive forms, facilitated by media technologies and complex patterns of transnational interaction, which ascribe identities to people on the move and root such identities within hierarchical structures of the market on local, national, and transna- tional scales. Looking at how interdiscursive networks intersect with people’s experience of mobility and the way they position themselves in social space, this article problematizes the divide between ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ approaches, offering a historically grounded approach to operations of power that permeate both metapragmatic discourse and experiences of mo- bility. (Mobility, metapragmatics, mediatization, interdiscursivity)* Mobility has become a highly prominent topic for sociolinguistics. A number of studies have explored various dimensions of the mobility of people across national and ethnolinguistic boundaries, a process facilitated by globalization. These include studies of migration (Collins, Slembrouck, & Baynham 2009), transnation- alism (De Fina & Perrino 2013), diaspora (Eisenlohr 2006), displacement (Baynham & De Fina 2005), and tourism (Heller, Jaworski, & Thurlow 2014). In- spired by the linguistic conditions and consequences that both facilitate and con- strain such cross-border flows of people, sociolinguistics is moving beyond the traditional domain of the nation-state to explore the complex aspects of language use in social contexts that arise in situations of mobility (Creese & Blackledge 2010; Blommaert & Rampton 2011). This special issue, Metapragmatics of Mobility, contributes to this body of work by drawing our attention to the semiotic dimensions of mobility. Building upon work that conceptualizes mobility as the movement not just of people, but also of texts, discourses, and ideologies about people (Appadurai 1996), this issue argues that tracing the pathways of metapragmatic discourse across time and space can add new insights for the cultural and political conditions of mobility (Wortham & Reyes 2015). It thus offers multiple case studies in which the circulation of © Cambridge University Press, 2017 0047-4045/16 $15.00 1 Language in Society 46,1–4. doi:10.1017/S0047404516001007 Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404516001007 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign Library, on 03 Mar 2017 at 20:01:42, subject to the