engleski

University Mission Statements - Between Linguistics and Marketing

In the world of marketing, a mission statement is defined as a formal written document designed with the aim to encompass and disseminate a company's unique and permanent purpose. During the last decades mission statements have become the most popular marketing tool, and as such, are becoming widely used in the academic world. University mission statements send a message to would-be candidates about aims, values, principles, benefits, policies, etc. of universities. The language of university mission statements, as a genre with discourse standards in the making, is characteristic for its linguistic (frequency of vocabulary, parts of speech, collocations, etc.) and nonlinguistic (content, visual design) elements. By unifying these elements, university mission statements may become a strong tool for conveying marketing messages about universities. In the article, the authors will distinguish between linguistic and nonlinguistic elements of university mission statements which send out a marketing message. Mission statements as marketing tools contain some standard and acknowledged key elements. The article will evaluate which of these standard content elements of mission statements are present in university mission statements and also how would-be students perceive university mission statements, pointing out reasons for selecting a particular university.

mission statement; university mission statement; linguistic elements; nonlinguistic elements; marketing message

nije evidentirano