The purpose of this paper is to present a system for describing and indexing patterns of communication at the relational level, primarily in dyadic systems. Relational communication refers to the control aspects of message exchanges that define an interactor's relationships with others. The reciprocal definition of each individual's role at a given moment in the interaction is reflected in the relative control each individual has and/or is given by the other individual. The control‐defining aspects of communication, rather than other information such communication may convey, is the focus of the coding system to be described. Further, the analysis deals with sequences of messages rather than individual messages, and attempts to index the control dimensions of those messages according to their similarity or difference. While previous interaction analysis techniques have been predominantly monadic in nature, i.e., single‐message coding schemes, the present approach is based on a systems level of analysis.1

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