Decoding School Mottoes: A Case of Selected Schools in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper, which falls in the onomastic paradigm, looks at purposively selected school mottoes in terms of their place in the life, not only of the pupils who pass through the institutions but also in terms, of their national significance. A huge chunk of our lives is spent literary on the school bench learning hence the motivation to study these small value-laden linguistic capsules,so small yet having so much say in shaping who we later become. We argue that these reflect a certain value system which in some cases may be seen as retrogressive and ‘islandic’ or reflecting a lager mentality in an ‘independent’ country-residual elements of the colonial hegemony. Since Zimbabwe has many such institutions, this study, which is by no means exhaustive, will only look at a few purposively selected institutions-institutions many ordinary Zimbabweans would choose for their children. Naming can be seen as primary and the ascribing of a motto as secondary and a furtherance of the ‘cause’ of the former. Because of this obvious link between the two, a brief discussion of the significance of naming is inevitable