Language evolution research in the year 2020: A survey of new directions

This introductory paper reviews recent advances in language evolution research and summarizes the contributions of the special issue “New Directions in Language Evolution Research” in the broader context of these developments. Specifically, we discuss the increasing role of multimodality and iconicity, the more integrative view of language dynamics that has arguably broadened the scope of language evolution research, and recent methodological innovations that allow for a more fine-grained study of e.g. typological distributions or behavioral patterns that can give clues to some of the keyquestions discussed in the field.