Francis M. Hult: Biography

Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio

Francis M. Hult
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics

Biography
Francis M. Hult joined the faculty of the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies in 2007, where he teaches in the TESL master's program and the Culture, Literacy, and Language doctoral program.

Growing up as a bilingual speaker of Swedish and English, Francis Hult has had a life-long fascination with language. As he was raised in the United States while also spending extensive time in Sweden with his extended family, complex issues related to multiculturalism, multilingualism, and transnationalism took on personal significance. These issues later became matters of academic and professional interest when Francis attended New York University, earning BA and MA degrees, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a PhD in educational linguistics.

He has taught at Lund University and the University of Pennsylvania. While at NYU, Hult trained in TESOL and French education in New York City Public Schools and, while in Philadelphia, he taught advanced spoken English at International House. Hult is also professionally active. He has been a contributing editor for the Foundation for Endangered Language's publication Ogmios, and he served on the promotions committee for the joint AAAL-CAAL/ACLA 2006 conference. He is currently on the editorial boards of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and Anthropology & Education Quarterly. He is also the founder and manager of the Educational Linguistics List (Edling), an international forum for scholars engaged with issues pertaining to language in education. Together with Leo van Lier, he is also co-editor of the Educational Linguistics book series for Springer.

Research
Hult's research work focuses on the management of linguistic diversity in multilingual social environments, with an emphasis on the impact of transnationlism on language policies and practices. He is particularly interested in processes of language planning that attempt to manage the status of national languages with respect to minority and foreign languages in Scandinavia. He investigates these issues in relation to micro-level language use, drawing on ethnographic and discourse analytic methods (e.g., nexus analysis and linguistic landscape analysis) to study the implications of language choices by individuals who live, work, and study in multilingual settings.

Related to the management of language in educational settings, Hult explores the history and development of educational linguistics as a transdisciplinary (sub)field. He examines its symbiotic relationship to applied linguistics as well as the methodological implications of conducting problem-oriented research that transcends disciplines. He is co-editor (with Bernard Spolsky) of the Handbook of Educational Linguistics (Blackwell, 2008), editor of Directions and Prospects for Educational Linguistics (Springer, 2010), and co-editor (with Kendall King) of Educational Linguistics in Practice: Applying the Local Globbally and the Global Locally (Multilingual Matters, 2011).

His work appears in international journals such as Current Issues in Language Planning, Language Policy, and Language Problems and Language Planning as well as in several edited volumes. Hult has lectured on sociolinguistics, language policy, and discourse analysis at universities in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, and Canada and presented at international conferences throughout Europe and North America. He was the 2010 Language Learning Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Calgary, Language Research Centre.