Le conversazioni scritte dei social media: un’analisi multidimensionale

The present study aimed to identify the distinctive features of conversations on social media by means of multidimensional analysis. Through the investigation of the systematic co-occur- rence of 41 selected linguistic features, such as discourse markers, left and right dislocations, mitigation and opinion verbs, factor analysis was used to extract four distinct dimensions of variation from eleven types of conversation. Multidimensional analysis favoured functional in- terpretation of the main features of Facebook and Twitter conversational interactions and led to conclude that these features are strictly connected to the complex relationships established between participants and their audience. Multidimensional analysis also suggested that the different ways these relationships are established and maintained affect the discourse strategies adopted in different social media.