ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how ‘Korea’ is imagined and constructed as a ‘brand’ through the use of linguistic resources across global space. It explores that the variety of ways in which Koreanness is enregistered in the linguistic landscape calls into question the a priori discreteness of ‘Korea’ as a national identity or ‘brand’. The chapter is concerned with the role of language in nation branding, particularly nation branding as a phenomenon of linguistic invention and reinvention. It draws on data collected through field research between 2014 and 2017 in 23 sites of ‘global’ Korea. The chapter offers analyses of signage that are representative of three discrete, at times overlapping, strategies: translation, transliteration, and translingualization. Translation refers to the re-presentation of language resources in another language. Transliteration can be understood as the representation of language resources in the script of another language. Translingualization is the blending of language resources that results in a condition of untransposability of conventional categories of ‘languages'.
