Digital Linguistic Landscapes: A Systematic Review of Language Education, Change, Identity, and Visibility

Abstract

Digitalisation has extended linguistic landscape research beyond physical signage to social media, messaging applications, virtual learning environments, and online commercial spaces. However, scholarship on digital linguistic landscapes remains fragmented across educational, sociolinguistic, cultural, and policy-oriented perspectives. This systematic literature review synthesises current knowledge concerning the relationships between digital linguistic landscapes and language education, language change, identity construction, and language visibility. Guided by the PRISMA framework, relevant peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2018 and 2026 were identified through Scopus and Web of Science, screened against pre-defined eligibility criteria, and subjected to quality appraisal and integrative thematic analysis. Twenty studies were retained for the final synthesis. The quality assessment indicated a moderate level of overall quality, with a mean score of 4.15 out of 6, equivalent to 69.2%. Four themes emerged: Language Education, Digital Language Change, Language and Identity, and Language Visibility. The findings demonstrate that digital linguistic landscapes support reflective learning, intercultural competence, and critical language awareness, while facilitating multimodal communication, lexical innovation, grammatical variation, code-mixing, and culturally situated meaning-making. Linguistic and semiotic choices also contribute to the construction of personal, cultural, and commercial identities by indexing belonging, authenticity, prestige, and global orientation. At the same time, unequal language visibility reflects broader relationships involving institutional authority, language policy, and ethnolinguistic vitality, with English frequently occupying a dominant position over regional and indigenous languages. The review highlights the need to integrate digital linguistic landscapes into language education and promote more equitable multilingual representation online. Future research should adopt longitudinal, comparative, and mixed-method approaches to examine under-represented languages, platform algorithms, audience participation, and the relationship between online visibility and everyday language practices.