Grice’s Cooperative Maxims and Implicatures in Advertisement Taglines of Selected Products in the Nigerian Malls

Abstract

This study centres on examining and analyzing Grice’s Cooperative principle in advertisementtaglines of selected products in Nigerian malls. An advertisement tagline is a publicannouncement with the purpose of persuading the public to desire a product or service.Advertisement taglines aim at changing the perception of the public.In the field of advertising;advertisers depend much on the conversational principle to achieve their goals. In most cases, theadvertisers in designing taglines flout the conversational maxims expecting their potentialcustomers to search for the underlying messages thus, birthing the present study. This studyexamined the cooperative maxims flouted by the advertisers in the sampled data and theimplicatures generated.The study adopts qualitative research method, five advertisement taglinesfor different brands of a particular product were purposively sampled. Findings reveal that threemaxims (Quantity, Quality and Relation) are flouted at varying intervals and implicatures aregenerated. The study reveals that the advertisers flouted these maxims deliberately to change theattitude of the potential customers towards the advertised products.