Revealing Grice's theory of implicature in university taglines

Abstract

Taglines are strategic linguistic constructs that capture who a university is, what it values, and its vision, but the interpretations often go beyond just the words. Based on Grice’s theory of implicature, this research looks into the influence of conversational maxims on the construction and communicative values of university taglines. Employing qualitative discourse analysis of 76 taglines extracted from official websites and promotional materials of leading universities in Indonesia, the study reveals the existence and role of Gricean maxims: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner in creating persuasive and contextually congruent information. The results demonstrate that although the majority of the taglines observe the maxims of quality and relation for the sake of credibility and contextual salience, some overtly violate the maxims of quantity or manner for rhetorical purposes, and to incite interpretative effort. Additionally, the study shows that taglines are derived from institutional identity, mission and vision, sociocultural motivators, and global and local contexts. As a final point, the researchers remind us that these taglines are much more than branding instruments; the scholarly work suggests that they are real communicative acts that, in their nature, have to negotiate between explicitness and implicature strategically. These findings have theoretical ramifications for the generalizability of insights from Grice's theory beyond the conversational context and practical implications for higher education institutions seeking to produce appropriate and memorable tagline messages.