The majority of text researchers today view text as deeply embedded in context. Still, the questionof how context should be treated in analysis, in order to achieve a “thick” theoretical understanding,remains substantially unanswered. In this article, a focus on the meso-level of context, the activity,is suggested as a way of contextualizing texts. This level has shown to be fruitful for explainingpatterns and variation in conversation. The meso-level of activity can also be expected to berelevant for the participants of textual communication, which is a key factor when striving for whatis sometimes called ecological validity. In the article, previous research and specific examples arediscussed in two thematic sections, focusing on texts in text-mediated activities (e.g. academic researchand education) and texts in practical activities (e.g. health care work), respectively. Basedon these overviews, a unified analytical perspective and a possible stance for researchers interestedin grounding their text analysis in a less ‘text-biased’ understanding of context are proposed. Thisperspective combines activity theory with a semiotic focus on text artefacts inspired by New LiteracyStudies. Once the role of a text in the activity is established, and when goals and possibleconflicts are identified, context-based concepts such as genre and discourse are suggested for linkingactivity to linguistic text structure.