anthropos 
99.2004: 451-468 
The Gift of the Gab 
Anthropology and Conversation Analysis 
David Zeitlyn 
Abstract. - This paper discusses the fine-grain analysis of 
conversation and how conversational structure is related to 
larger issues of social organisation. Mauss’s analysis of “the 
Gift” is related to “adjacency pairs” and the patterns of turn 
taking that form conversational structure, particularly helping 
identification of conversational breakdown and subsequent 
repair. Social tensions cause problems in communication. 
Hence, the study of social actors keeping conversation flowing 
reveals social processes. Ethnographic examples are used from 
Mambila in Cameroon. The moral dimension to gift exchange 
can help us understand why dumb insolence is offensive. 
Failing to return a greeting is similar to the failure to return a 
gift. The exchange of words shows up the web of relationships 
that constitute the fabric of society. [Cameroon, Mambila, gift 
exchange, conversation analysis] 
Havid Zeitlyn is reader in Social Anthropology, Department of 
Anthropology, The University of Kent, Canterbury, where he 
has taught since 1995. He has been working with Mambila in 
Cameroon since 1985 on traditional religion, sociolinguistics, 
kinship, and history. In 2003/4 he was the Evans-Pritchard 
lecturer at All Souls College, Oxford, presenting a series of 
lectures on the life history of Diko Madeleine, the first wife of 
Chief Konaka of Somie. Publications include: Ethnogenesis and 
Fractal History on the African Frontier. Mambila-Njerep-Man- 
hulu (with B. Connell. Journal of African History 2003); Trois 
e hides sur les Mambila de Somie, Cameroun (with N. Mial and 
C. Mbe. Boston 2000); African Crossroads (coeditor with Ian 
Fowler. Oxford 1996); see also References Cited. 
introduction 
^his article discusses some of the merits of the 
fine-grain analysis of conversation that forms a 
Part of my own research in Cameroon. I hope to 
fi £ able to show that the detail of conversational 
structure is intimately related to the larger issue 
of social organisation and can provide a bridge 
between the generalisations of “high theory” and 
social action in everyday life. 
Initially, I ask the reader to consider a situation 
which most, if not all, of us have experienced: 
You walk down a street and see some, one you know. 
You nod and say hello; they walk past without acknowl 
edging you (without even a nod back). To be snubbed in 
this way causes indignation and affront. Indeed, I do not 
think it is going too far to suggest that one experiences 
moral outrage. 
Mauss: “The Gift” 
With that example in mind I turn to Marcel Mauss 
and his “Essai sur le Don” (1925), translated as 
“The Gift” (1954). One of the pleasures of anthro 
pology is the way in which ideas encountered in 
one context have a powerful explanatory role when 
applied to a different subject. It is partly because 
of its wide applicability that “The Gift” occupies a 
central position in British social anthropology 1 and 
Godbout (2000) has been among those revising 
interest in Mauss in the francophone tradition. One 
implication of Mauss’s thesis is that the giver and 
the object given cannot be completely separated; 
an element of the donor’s personhood inheres in 
the gift object. This has been used both in the 
1 Sahlins (1974), and more recently Parry (1986), Davis 
(1992), and Strathem (1988) have discussed many of these 
issues, so I will not further discuss them here.