Metapragmatics of mobility

This introduction presents a framework for analyzing the semiotic dimensions 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 transnational 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 mobility. (Mobility, metapragmatics, mediatization, interdiscursivity)*