Conversational strategies in non-conversational texts: the communicative structure of Cicero’s Fourth Catilinarian

Cicero’s fourth political speech against Catiline was held in 63 BCE and
published in 60 BCE. Whether the original speech had been adapted before publication is a matter of debate among Latinists. In this article we adduce linguistic support for the hypothesis that the speech was indeed adapted, bringing together methodologies and concepts from both Conversation Analysis (CA) and Discourse Analysis (DA). We have analyzed the complete speech in CA-terms as a multi-unitturn with many insert expansions and some pre-expansions. For each expansion, in turn, we have made a DA-analysis, in terms of the rhetorical function of the expansion and of references to common ground. The results of this combined analysis show that at least four substantial insert expansions cannot be logically analyzed as part of the ‘conversation’ of 63 BCE but are best explained as expanding another conversation, namely, as we know from other sources, a discussion in 60 BCE in which Cicero needed to defend himself from accusations related to his politics of 63 BCE. We will show that the four insert expansions fit perfectly as justifications triggered by an implicit second pair part (reactive move) in this conversation of 60 BCE.