Xue Dong

I am a PhD researcher at Ghent University in the field of applied linguistics. My academic background is in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, and my research interests lie at the intersection of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural studies, healthcare discourse, and multilingual communication.

My doctoral research focuses on pain expression in English and Chinese, with particular attention to how pain is linguistically constructed, interpreted, and communicated across languages and cultures. Drawing on culturally grounded concepts of pain in Chinese, including perspectives from Traditional Chinese Medicine, a central objective of my research is to contribute to improve health communication, especially in clinical and intercultural contexts.

Through this research, I aim to bridge linguistic theory and real-world healthcare practice, and to contribute to more culturally sensitive and linguistically informed approaches to pain assessment and communication.