This book proposes to help readers search for system at the discourse level and to convince them that language use is part of the essence of language. The nine core chapters treat system in discourse in a series of hierarchically arranged levels: a description of the highest level of system in discourse and an analysis using Goffman's constraints; Goffman's ritual or social constraints; information about script theory and communication; language functioning and ways of analyzing communication content; rhetorical structure theory and classical rhetorical models; specific linguistic cohesive markers; discourse mode and syntax; pragmatics and prosody, and layers of discourse analysis.