Cartographies of language: Making sense of mobility among Korean transmigrants in Singapore

• Transmigrants' ideologies of language mediate their experiences of mobility.
• The notion of cartographies of language is proposed to capture this idea.
• Accounts of transnational Koreans in Singapore are used to illustrate this point.

This paper studies the way transmigrants rely on linguistic difference as an important resource for making sense of their experiences of mobility. Through an analysis of how Korean transmigrants in Singapore talk about their experience of transnational movement, it shows that distinctions of language, which are commonly articulated in hierarchical terms such as competence, legitimacy, and economic value, generate an ideologized image of space for the migrants—a map that allows them to actively interpret space and imagine their position in the global world. It then considers the implications such cartographies of language have for the emerging sociolinguistics of globalization.