This chapter explains the importance of a sustained study of the linguistic/semiotic landscape of global Korea not only in obvious ways for scholars of Korean studies but also to readers more generally interested in language and globalization even without a stated interest in Korea per se. Doing so comes with the related task of providing necessary background on Korea as a national imaginary with a particular focus on aspects of its ethnic national heritage that are relevant to its iterations across the linguistic/semiotic landscape of global Korea. In other words, this chapter describes what some of the generalizable characteristics of Korea are (for readers interested in the globalization of culture) while also describing what makes Korea “unique,” which is particularly important given the focus of the book, to explore the mechanics by which a given cultural entity can come to be semiotically salient (i.e., distinguishable) across global space. This chapter also serves as the space to provide some background to the study that informs this book, describing the various iterations it has taken since 2012.

This chapter considers the significance of viewing cultural entities not only directly but “obliquely” as well, especially as they are encountered in translingual contexts. In order to do so, it outlines the various theoretical advancements of translingualism with a particular emphasis on the importance of attending to spatial and temporal considerations within linguistic/semiotic landscape research. In addition, while translingualism has been presented as a linguistic theory critical to establishing and sustaining cosmopolitan relations across cultural difference, this chapter raises the question of what it means to conceive of another cultural entity as “different” if such differences are semiotically produced in ways that are tenuous if not arbitrary. The chapter thus asks readers to explore culture as it is produced and reproduced within contexts of semiotic precarity, when the presumed essence of an entity is unable to be taken for granted (whether by an “outsider” or even an “insider”) and therefore demands affirmation or reaffirmation via semiotic distinction (semiotic acts that distinguish it from another cultural entity).

This chapter considers the excess of signification, or the semiotic “traces” of global Korea. It first explores the question of the trace in relation to conspicuous municipal designations of Korean spaces in various Koreatowns, which are in turn juxtaposed with the Gwanghwamun in Seoul, a gate to the royal Gyeongbokgung Palace that has been destroyed, relocated, and restored over the years. The chapter then examines how cultural meaning emerges through semiotic traces that would normally be dismissed as having any significatory value, focusing on the case of European semiosis and the role it plays in signifying Koreanness. Finally, it turns to the unusual case of signage in bathrooms of restaurants and other establishments advising patrons to not flush paper down the toilet, reflective of a uniquely Korean preoccupation that can be traced to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. These examples collectively show that Korea can be encountered through semiotic traces that seem to have nothing to do with Korea at all. This in turn not only raises questions about what Korea is but also invites considerations of what to look for when trying to make sense of Korea or another cultural entity.

This chapter introduces a framework of translingual inversion, which facilitates our effort to make sense of the ways in which a given culture can be rendered visible across global space. “Translingual inversion” describes both a theoretical heuristic by which to inquire into what may be the core semiotic features of a given cultural imaginary, which distinguish it from another cultural imaginary, and also the phenomenon of recognizing such features, of locating culture. The application and understanding of translingual inversion are made possible by adopting a global locus, but also “obliquely.” Due to the fact that a given culture typically need not be expected to differentiate itself from other cultures on an everyday basis, translingual inversion is about making sense of the ways in which culture can be located across global space. This chapter also outlines some of the complexities inherent to semiotically representing a particular kind of culture, namely the national imaginary, and then briefly describe how translingual inversion can therefore be instrumental to the task of “locating” national imaginaries across global space.

This chapter attempts to inspire readers to pursue complementary inquiry into considerations of global Korea and analogous research into global iterations of other cultural imaginaries. This chapter also attempts to answer the broader question of why the interdisciplinary study of language remains important in today’s global era. On the one hand, contact across cultures and the realities of transculturation are increasingly the norm. However, more importantly, approaching language in this manner enables us to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics by which cultures can be rendered distinguishable across global space. It further enables us to attend to the reality that questions of what it means to belong to a given cultural entity to begin with are undergoing radical and unprecedented permutations. Therefore, this chapter suggests that perhaps the question is not so much how today the study of language is more important than ever, but how we can continue to adapt it and be flexible enough so that we can continue to try and make sense of the role of language in relation to the ever-changing contours of cultural belonging today and into the future.

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of representing the nation as a problem of scale but also as a contingency of scale. It approaches the idea of Korea as a discrete cultural entity as a question of scale, which I define as a discursive framing device that enables us to orient or reorient ourselves toward a given element of our social worlds that is otherwise difficult or impossible to make sense of. Korea, in this sense, is treated both in terms of being able to be scaled and perhaps only ever being subject to scale. The chapter first looks at the scaling of Korea via the color red, which emerged as synonymous with the nation following the 2002 FIFA World Cup, and how such a chromatic association, even if highly unstable, has been embraced since. It then looks to examples of scaling Korea via historical allusions to the ancient Koryo dynasty, a process which demands a strategic manipulation of historical fact. Finally, it analyzes the global allusiveness of a small series of islets whose ownership remains disputed between Korea and Japan, and unpacks the implications of the impossibility of representing the territory to scale.

This chapter focuses on locating the nation via language, in particular written language. It focuses on written language in part due to the fact that the script of the Korean language, known as Han-geul, is frequently referenced as a distinguishing aspect of Korean national identity. More generally, code choice on signage is perhaps the most obvious and simplest way to see cultural difference in the linguistic/semiotic landscape. However, this chapter is not merely an effort to enumerate or catalog instantiations of Koreanness via written language. Instead, it looks at moments of what can be described as “weird language,” or instances of translation, transliteration, and translingualization that are “unfamiliar,” which through their unfamiliarity render intelligible cultural distinctiveness. Examining “weird language” across spaces in Beijing, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Oakland, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo, the chapter explores what such encounters tell us about our assumptions about the familiar: the taken-for-granted aspects of culture that in a given moment may be expected to stand in for a culture and differentiate it from another.

Global Asias is a conceptual framework generated out of the frequently incompatible institutional structures that organize the academic knowledge production of Asia and its multiple diasporas. Bringing Asian Studies, Asian American Studies, and Asian Diaspora Studies into nonaligned relation, this chapter acknowledges the structural incoherence of Global Asias as both object and approach and proposes the concept of imaginable ageography. The chapter draws attention to the ways in which key conceptual topographies such as the Orient, Asian America, the transpacific, and Global Asias bring into visibility specific geographic features and characteristics (and acknowledge geopolitical structures) but develop conceptual realities that simultaneously reference, exceed, and remake such topographies imaginatively. The chapter illustrates the theoretical possibilities of ageography by treating contemporary Asian/American works of speculative vision - including Ruth Ozeki’s novel A Tale for the Time Being (2013), the literary anthology The SEA is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia (2015), and the digital photographic collages of Yang Yongliang’s From the New World (2016). In drawing out the ageographic dimensions of conceptual topographies, the chapter argues for the critical potential of discordance in theorizing Global Asias.