Anthropos: Anthropos, 99.2004

Anthropos, 99.2004

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510222436589

Titel:: Anthropos, 99.2004

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2004

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 99, 2004, Heft 2

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: The Gift of the Gab. Anthropology and Conversation Analysis

Sonstige Person:: Zeitlyn, David

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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.

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