Are women really the only ones who work hard in interaction?

This paper is a replication of Pamela Fishman’s ‘Interaction: The work women do’ using Brazilian Portuguese speakers as subjects. The study develops Fishman’s methodology, in particular in the treatment of question forms which are analysed taking into account the function of the questions in the discourse. Not all questions were found to have a role in the development and maintainance of interaction. There are few similarities between the findings reported in Fishman’s study and the findings in this study. There appears to be no clear evidence of unequal distribution of work in the conversations of the two couples. Even though the men raised more topics, both men and women worked for the conversation to develop smoothly by doing support work while the other participant was talking.