This manual outlines a coding system for the categorization of social action performed in talking, in the context of mother-infant interaction. The system, constructed for investigating the acquisition of language for social-communicative purposes, codes talk on two levels: the single utterance, and the interchange. Both kinds of units are defined functionally as well as grammatically, and in both cases the analysis is communicative rather than strictly functional. In the utterance, the analysis codes for the intended illocutionary act; in the interchange, it codes for the speaker's overt framing (i.e., defining) of the immediate social situation. The manual is divided into 11 sections as follows: (1) an introduction explaining the notion of framing and the interactive functions of talk interchanges; (2) types of verbal interchange; (3) speech act codes, categories, and definitions; (4) coding rules for classifying types of verbal interchange; (5) coding rules for classifying verbal moves and acts within types of verbal interchange; (6) coding guidelines for book-reading; (7) transcription rules; (8) a method of dividing the corpus into codable units; (9) general coding and indexing rules relating to the format of the computer file; (10) a glossary and index of interchange codes; and (11) a glossary and index of verbal act codes. (MSE)