Sintassi del Microblogging e comunicazione istituzionale @Twiperbole #Buongiorno #Bologna!

Over the last few years, the Italian public authorities have realized the value of social media as broadcasting channels capable of reaching a large audience. Contextually, they have become aware that it is imperative to switch from a communication model which targets the citizen to one which draws the citizen into a conversation. This change implies knowing how to use social media tools to build a conversational relationship, which cannot fail to affect linguistic features. The increasing presence of the civil service on the social media has generated a concurring flourishing of meetings and studies onthis subject. However, research has focused primarily on communicational and sociological facets, leaving the linguistic phenomena mainly untouched, with particular regard to the most recent platforms such as Twitter. This study endeavours to make good this omission by providing a preliminary mapping of the usages developed by the Italian municipality of Bologna in the short writing style typical of Twitter, focusing primarily on the microsyntax. The analysis outlines the ways and purposes in which the distinctive microsyntax used by microblogging power users is applied in a context of institutional communication. Paralinguistic functions, the use of hashtags and other metadata are described in detail with recourse to extensive examples.