Interaction: The Work Women Do

1978/04/01 by Pamela M. Fishman · 1 voice · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Discourse Analysis in Language Studies #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition

paper · doi:10.2307/800492

openalex publication_date 1978/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

The paper examines male-female hierarchy in everyday interaction. Beginning with a discussion of the concepts of power and of conversation as negotiated activity, it suggests that successful interaction depends on work by the participants. Using tapes of daily conversations between three male-female couples as data, I present some observations on the ways conversation is controlled as well as the results of transcript analysis. The analysis describes the concrete strategies used by men and women in interaction. Women do more conversational work than men; this is the interactional manifestation of power relations. Finally, some suggestions are made on the importance of studying interactions in the areas of availability and maintenance of one's gender identity.

Citations

• Language and woman's place
• A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation

Cited by

• Doing Gender
• Are you listening? Cultural influences on the use of supportive verbal feedback in conversation

Discussions

• There's work related to this in Lang&Gender studies that you might find interesting. Here's an old but foundational paper I've used in teaching that can prob lead you to more recent work: Fishman, P. [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]

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