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Pictorial adjuncts in textbooks will not cease to be a relevant didactic topic until there are centrally controlled classrooms with the textbook as a principal tool of the teacher’s authority. This article considers typical approaches to this non-verbal learning component in language textbooks from the perspective of the present digital environment. Carney and Levin (2002) are traditionalists, offering five types of images which do not, in our opinion, contribute to acquisition of language skills being ornamental in nature and irrelevant for learning specific language skills. This is confirmed by Laitinen (2014) who found out that data regarding didactic photographs indicated that only 36% of all photographs aided learning while 64% were merely decorational images. Barthes´ (1977) theoretical framework concerning the absence of the didactic code in decorational and representational photographs demonstrates the need of the code implementation at the level of reception. Considering the picture and text in the recent electronic environment, Chun (2016) acknowledges that it is not possible to “opt out” of using technology. However, she is a typical representative of those educators who aim to achieve communicative competence by shifting reading literacy onto the Internet, by treating the digital environment as a circulating library. The article deals briefly with the meme as “new literature” and the prospects of the teachers seriously considering language learning in the prevailing electronic environment.