Currently, in the period of Poststructualism literature is widely approached as a cultural and social phenomenon and the aims of literary studies as the illuminating of social codes, ideology etc. embedded in literature. This study evaluates the contribution of specific critics working within the so-called "New paradigm". The concept "New paradigm" is used as an umbrella term covering a number of distinct developments, referring to literature as a system of literary "actions" rather than as a canon of books. In recent years several Afrikaans critics have embraced or adapted current theories in the domains of Deconstruction, Ideology Criticism, Literary, Sociology, Recepticm Aesthetics, Semiotics and Feminism. This study explores and evaluates the application of such theoretical paradigms to their work in the field of practical criticism. This study also explores the relationship between current theories of literature and their antecedents. The notion of current literary theory and practice not only as a broadening of scope and content of the notion of the "literary" but on the other hand as a liberation of theory and practice from an over-deterministic thrust (i.e. the approach of literature as no more than a set of social documents) is also evaluated in this study. A twofold aim of this study can thus be defined: a. to determine the extent to which the shift from the "old" to "new" theories was made necessary by the developing literary and social scene; b. to examine the links beween theory and practice in the work of specific, key figures in Afrikaans. Is it possible for theory and practice to be separated? Is there an important consistence in the relationship between the two in the work of the figures chosen?