Abstract

In the late 20th century, gestures were mainly regarded as part of pragmatics, separate from core linguistic fields like phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics. This division was rooted in Chomsky’s (1965) distinction between linguistic competence and performance, with only the former being considered within the scope of linguistics. This paper demonstrates that gestures have now become central to core linguistic research. It examines recent developments in gesture and multimodality research within linguistics, beginning with a discussion of gesture concepts, followed by an introduction to gestures as an empirical phenomenon. Recent find-ings on gestural modality and its integration into spoken language are presented, highlighting three key themes: the role of gestures in emphasizing information, their integration into syntax and prosody, and the emergence and stabilization of gestural and multimodal patterns. These developments suggest a growing recognition of gesture as integral to linguistic study.