The Bilingual Review's Special Issue "Linguistic Landscapes and Bilingualism in the Global South" is Live!

The Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe is proud to announce the publication of Vol. 38, Issue 1,  “Linguistic Landscapes and Bilingualism in the Global South,” co-edited by Osman Solmaz and Steve Przymus.

This special issue features articles aimed at “not simply [expanding] coverage of [linguistic landscape (LL)] research but also to re-center perspective, to change/shift epistemic/conceptual (re)positioning within LL research, to prioritize contexts… often viewed as supplementary, and… to cast an even greater magnifying lens on the intersection of LL and bilingualism” (Osman & Przymus, 2026, p. 1) in the Global South.

The first article, “The Adhan as a Bilingual Soundscape: Multimodal and Multilingual Dimensions of the Islamic Call to Prayer” by Sari Mosa Aljohani, Tariq Elyas, Osman Solmaz, Abdulkareem Adnan, and Ibrar Bhatt, analyzes the intersection of “local languages, identities, and power dynamics in Muslim-majority and minority contexts” in the Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, “from five sites: Al-Haram Al-Makki, Al-Haram Al-Nabawi, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa, Al-Azhar Mosque, and Hagia Sophia.”  

The next article, “Language Visibility and Vitality of Lampung Language in Public Signage: A Linguistic Landscape Study” by Kristian Adi Putra, Imelda Imelda, Lusia Marliana Nurani, Mukhammad Isnaeni, Halimatusa’diah Halimatusa’diah, and Dunja Radojkovic, “serves as an important first step toward collaborative, strategic, and sustained efforts among stakeholders to bring back Lampung language use [and] contributes to ongoing discussions on LL, language vitality, and Indigenous language revitalization strategies.”

Steve Przymus, Migdalia Elizabeth Rodríguez Rosales, Amy Correia, Laura Hamman-Ortiz, and Nicole King’s article, “Translanguaging in the Linguistic Landscapes (LL) of the U.S./Mexico Border and U.S. Latine Transnational Spaces: Comparing Use and Identification in Sonora, México and Rhode Island, U.S.A,” is the third article of this special issue. In it these scholars argue “that translanguaging acts as a powerful and unifying semiotic strategy for agentic identity formation, for linguistic survivance, and for linking geographically distant transnational spaces and histories” by “[investigating] the knowledge production and power dynamics created through the textual metafunction of translanguaging in the LL” of Sonora, México and Rhode Island.

“Pedagogical Linguistic Landscapes in the Global South: Raising Awareness of Language Coexistence and Multilingual Practices in Uruguayan EFL Classrooms” by Eugenia Balseiro, Virginia Frade-Pandolfi, and Rossana Mántaras is the fourth article in this special issue. Their study “seeks to demonstrate how LLs can be integrated into language education to raise awareness of language coexistence, hierarchies, and identities, while also encouraging students to critically engage with the sociolinguistic ecologies of their communities.”

The fifth article of this special issue, “Breaking New Ground in Language Education:

Exploring Communities Through Cross-Global Collaborations” by Lenny Sánchez, Luzkarime Calle-Díaz, Lina Trigos-Carrillo, and Erika Sánchez, “expands the notion of linguistic landscapes in the Global South [dismantling] hierarchical beliefs in language, [pushing] beyond arbitrary bounds of classroom learning, and [repositioning] students’ standpoints at the center of their language learning.”

Suhad I. Aldhahri and Amel M. Shoaib’s article, “Bilingual Street Signage at Three Religious Hajj Sites in Makkah: A Linguistic Landscape Translation Perspective” aims to deepen  the “understanding of how bilingual signage supports pilgrims’ experience” in the Saudi Arabian religious sites of Arafat, Mina, and Muzdalifah.

Finally, this special issue concludes with “Rhythm and Blues and Its Power to Promote Intercultural Skills: A Class-Based Experience” by Alejandro Fernández Benavides and Steffany Palacios Castillo. In this article, the two authors focus on “the role of music in language learning, its potential to address social issues, and its affordances to examine one’s own culture after the implementation of a pedagogic proposal based on the study of Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music.”

We at The Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe thank all the contributing authors for their tireless dedication and robust scholarship. We are proud to be part of this interdisciplinary contribution at the intersection of bi-/multilingual education research and the field of international and comparative-international education inquiry.

Please forward this issue’s link (https://bilingualreviewjournal.org/) to your colleges and colleagues and encourage them to submit to The Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe. Also, please share this issue on social media with friends, family, and readers so this issue can get the furthest reach possible.