Abstract In previous decades, the language sciences made important advances by dividing language into its different information formats, such as phonetics, semantics, and syntax. Such division generally implied that language processing is divorced from context. In more recent decades, however, important advances in the language sciences have been made in understanding how linguistic information interacts with context. These contextual influences stem from a broad range of sources. They include linguistic and non‐linguistic processes within and between individuals. This brief review touches on experimental results from both behavioral and neural measures, and from both individuals processing prepared linguistic stimuli and dyads sharing unscripted conversation. Overall, the findings generally support a view of language processing that must somehow allow for the different information formats of language to retain their unique labels but also accommodate the fact that they frequently interact and overlap with other, even non‐linguistic, formats of information.