International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 9, No. 6; 2019 ISSN 1923-869X E-ISSN 1923-8703 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 392 Pragma-Semantic Relations in the Structure of a Business Microblog Alexandra V. Radyuk 1 , Maria V. Ivanova 2 , Darima A. Badmatsyrenova 1 & Vasily S. Makukha 1 1 Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia 2 Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing, Russia Correspondence: Alexandra Radyuk, Senior Lecturer of Foreign Languages Department, Faculty of Economics, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 117198, Miklukho-Maklaya str. 6, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: radyuk-av@rudn.ru Received: September 28, 2019 Accepted: October 25, 2019 Online Published: November 12, 2019 doi:10.5539/ijel.v9n6p392 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v9n6p392 Abstract The article considers the business microblog as a new business communication register and studies its structural and semantic properties. The relevance of the work is determined by the fact that at present the microblog register in the context of business communication and its semantic structure are not fully studied. The authors aim to find out what pragmatic, structural and semantic features are peculiar to business messages in social network Twitter. Using the methods of discourse analysis, semantic and linguosynergetic analysis, we identified such structural properties of business microblogs as hypertextuality, interactivity, spontaneity, business context, dialogism, situationality and expressiveness. Semantic properties include most frequent pragma-semantic relations between propositions in microblogs (explanation, expansion, causation, pragmatic commentary). The language material shows that the genre of business microblogging is the result of mixing and contamination of oral and written registers of business discourse, as well as the emergence of new technical means of communication. A linguosynergetic analysis of propositions showed that the semantic structure is determined by the communicative intention of the addressee and, due to the small volume of messages, is based on two or three propositions connected by certain logical relationships. Further research on this topic can be carried out in the field of studying other genres and the influence of addressee factor in online communication. Keywords: business discourse, discourse analysis, linguosynergetics, microblog, stylistics, system 1. Introduction 1.1 Statement of the Problem This paper explores the problem of the structural-semantic organisation of the message in a business microblog from the point of view of its conditioning by the business pragmatics of such a message. The topicality of the present research is due to the need to describe the mechanisms of the functional perspective of business discourse evolution in this understudied and relatively young speech register—the business microblog. The study is a continuation of work in the field of functional pragmatics of English business discourse (Malyuga, & Tomalin, 2017; Malyuga, 2019; Malyuga, 2020; Kharkovskaya, Ponomarenko, & Radyuk, 2017; Lebedeva & Orlova, 2019; Litvinov, Burikova, & Khramchenko, 2017; Malakhova, 2017; Khramchenko, 2015). Using a linguosynergetic approach to the study of oral and written business speech, we have developed a classification of discursive strategies according to the criterion of enhancing and weakening of pragmatic impact, concealment and openness of impact. Continuing to investigate various manifestations of business discourse functioning as a synergistic system of meanings, in this paper we turn to the field of online communication. Linguists emphasise the particular relevance of the study of genres which are subject to contamination—a mixture of traits characteristic of different styles. However, not only their structural originality is interesting, but also the speech influence potential, taking into account the small volume of messages in a business microblog. The main hypothesis is that small-format texts, united by the topic of business activity, are organised according to a certain set of logical and semantic relations. The secondary hypothesis suggests that this register limits the set of special order parameters in the pragma-semantic system of small-format text to several most frequent ones. The theoretical significance of the study is that it expands the range of studies on linguosynergetics and