Abstract
Language study and literary criticism have for many years been separated. Modern developments in critical theory have stressed the study of texts. Structuralism developed a semiotic approach to texts using psychological and linguistic theory to support objective analysis. Poststructuralist theory has further developed these approaches investigating deep and surface significance in textual interpretation urging a deconstruction of texts to yield a full contemporary understanding. The relationship between writer, reader, text, and context is seen anew within the whole communication complex in an approach which regards texts as discourse. Advanced foreign language teaching unites literature and language in a new synthesis stressing communication and conceptualization through language. Technical communication should be aware of new interdisciplinary trends since it is itself at the center of the dominant theme of communication.