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1. system constraints – the components required for all communication systems:
2. ritual constraints – the social constraints that smooth social interaction:
 present a culture-specific reflection of individual system constraints (needless to say,
they offer vast possibilities of cross-cultural comparisons pinpointing various differences
in cultural assumptions and expectations);
 help build a complicated social network of values, norms of conduct and appropriacy;
 when adhered to, equip individual members with a feeling of their social worth, credit,
face.
Together they provide a systematic framework for the description of discourse, even the
discourse of everyday, mundane communication. SCs also apply to more formal channels of
communication. We can look, for example, at how we open or introduce topics and conclude or
close topics in written text. We can use the universal SCs as a framework to describe
classroom discourse, medical encounters, telephone conversations, or personal letters.
Many communication specialists work from videotaped data – natural conversational
data produced by users in ordinary, everyday ways – because nonverbal information such as
eye gaze, body orientation, hand movements, and head tilt may serve as communication
signals.

System Constraints
There are eight system constraints (SCs) that Goffman claimed to be universal in all
human communication. They are as follows:
1. channel open and close signals, 5. bracket signals,
2. back-channel signals, 6. nonparticipant constraints,
3. turnover signals, 7. preempt signals,
4. acoustically adequate and interpretable 8. a set of Gricean norms.
messages,

1.Channel open/close signals
In all communication, there are ways to show that communication is about to begin and
then begins, and ways to show that it is about to end and then ends. These channel open/close
signals will differ according to the channel (e.g., phone calls, letters, meetings, classrooms).
The description of these signals and how they vary across mode, channel, and setting is part of
the analysis of discourse.
 e.g., formulaic expressions like introductory  give due recognition to the parties;
and/or farewell greetings, enquiries about  are of appropriate length and
one´s well-being, etc., structure;
 depend on the type of channel or social  are exchanged reciprocally and with
context (spoken/written, formal/informal). due attention.

The following dialogue is a typical American telephone conversation, a channel that has
quite formalized openings and closings:
Marcia: Hello.
Tony: Hi Marcia,
Marcia: Yeah?
Tony: This is Tony.
Marcia: HI Tony.
Tony: How are you?