Our research work can be regarded as comprising three major components: to lend support to the modern idea of analysing real texts on several levels including discourse analysis and pragmatics; to improve the overall level of bilingual lexicography, including both general language and language for specific purposes (LSP); to present the results of a multi-faceted contrastive analysis of English and Slovene and of German and Slovene. The results will hopefully be seen in a variety of linguistic activities, including a heightened awareness of the need to be fluent in foreign languages, an idea that is particularly relevant in terms of Slovenia recently becoming a member of the European Union. Our prime target groups are translators, interpreters, lexicographers, foreign language teachers, journalists, lawyers, researchers, politicians and members of the armed forces. Additionally, our work is aimed at increasing the general level of the teaching of English and German in Slovenia, first and foremost by taking into account communicative approaches to language teaching.