Communication is one of 7 concepts that underpin teaching and learning in the English A: Language and Literature Course. Linking to the 3 areas of exploration, these 7 concepts enable students to make connections between works and texts as they transition across their course of study.

The concept of communication is central to debates around readers, writers, and texts. Writers, we may assume, communicate with readers, manipulating language, style, and structure to establish ideas. Writers may write for particular purposes and for different intended audiences; it is interesting for students of English A: Language and Literature to consider how writers manipulate language and style to communicate with readers, an audience that may or may not be intended. Readers, in turn, may read more or less cooperatively. Even cooperative readers may arrive at different understandings of a text, and oppositional readers may challenge the ideas and meanings intended by a writer. Understood in this way, communication is a complex notion in which the meaning of texts may be more or less contested.