He worked for decades with ethnic communities, schools, parents, educators and governments and made the case, through research and advocacy, for the linguistic rights of migrants. He was always a fervent advocate for the linguistic rights of multilinguals and pursued an unwavering agenda to educate the broader community about the benefits of multilingualism that accrue to individuals and to their communities. Ellis, 2008 Reagan & Osborn, 2002, and many others) and one which Michael was keen to address. The monolingual mindset is a fundamental issue which continues to preoccupy academics and language advocates worldwide (e.g. Clyne, 2004, 2005, 2008 Ellis et al., 2010) has echoed for centuries across the globe (see Christ, 1997, who was also the first to introduce the phrase ‘monolingual mindset’ as a translation of ‘ monolingualer Habitus’, coined by Gogolin, 1993, that Michael came to adopt). This experience of the ‘monolingual mindset’ (e.g. He identified the development of forced monolingualism, imposed following Australia’s Federation in 1901, which led to the closure of dozens of bilingual schools and newspapers and the stigmatisation of bilingualism, particularly the use of German during the war years (Clyne, 1975, 1991a). Michael documented the great linguistic and cultural diversity in Australia from the mid-19th century, a diversity that had largely been forgotten but which extended into Australia’s political life, education system, newspapers and across the public landscape in the towns and cities of the burgeoning nation. Multilingualism was a fact of life in Australia long before the post-second World War immigration scheme. It brought home to me the fact that in some parts of Australia, the Germans were the old Australians and the English were the new Australians. The New Australians have come from England and they make such a noise on their motorbikes’. One of the leading questions I would ask was: ‘How has this place changed since you were a child?’ ‘Oh’, said the elderly man in the museum in fluent German, ‘it really has changed. It was through Michael’s early collection of oral histories from German speakers in Australia that he began to explore what he saw as missing elements of Australian history (Clyne, 1975, 1988).Ī few decades ago, I was in Lobethal (South Australia) tape-recording bilinguals whose ancestors had arrived there in 1841. The German language was, among Michael’s very broad range of interests, a lifelong passion for him (see, for example, Clyne, 1967, 1985, 1995) for which he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour and the German Cross of Merit, as well as the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prize for German Studies (1999) and the Humboldt Research Prize (2003). The diversity of Michael’s academic interests stems from his childhood experiences as a second-generation German-English speaking Australian (see, for example, Hajek, 2012 Nettelbeck, 2011 Sharifian & Sussex, 2010) and subsequently through his doctoral work on German-English language contact in the migrant context in Australia. ![]() Over his long career, Michael pioneered or played a critical role in the development of many fields within linguistics and applied linguistics in the Australian and international contexts, including sociolinguistics, bilingualism and multilingualism, contact linguistics and pluricentricity, inter- and intracultural communication, pragmatics, second language learning, language policy, linguistic demography and German, Dutch and English (including Australian English) linguistics. Michael’s breadth of research was remarkable. Sadly, Michael passed away in October 2010, but he left behind a wonderful legacy. Professor Michael Clyne was a passionate academic who dedicated his life to the pursuit of linguistic knowledge, and to its application for the wider benefit of society. Such a mindset sees everything in terms of monolingualism being the norm, even though there are more bi- and multilinguals in the world than monolinguals. The greatest impediment to recognising, valuing and utilising our language potential is a persistent monolingual mindset. ![]() Introduction Yvette Slaughter and John Hajek Challenging the Monolingual Mindset
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