Dr. WAN Yau Ni, JennyJennyDr. WAN Yau Ni2026-05-282026-05-282026Wan, Y. N. (2026). Grief in words: Exploring emotional resilience in digital hospice narratives. In Hong Kong Shue Yan University (Ed.). Conference proceeding of international conference on human resilience: Navigating life changes & challenges (HRCONF2026). International Conference on Human Resilience: Navigating Life Changes & Challenges (HRCONF2026), Hong Kong Shue Yan University (pp. 19). Hong Kong Shue Yan University.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/27257This study is an applied linguistic exploration of the healthcare context, exploring how carers and families of terminally ill patients express and manage anticipatory grief through digital storytelling in hospice care settings. Through analyzing first-handed personal narratives shared on hospice websites and support group forums in Hong Kong and the UK, we aim to understand how language helps individuals express and cope with the emotional challenges of end-of-life care. Using an English text corpus of 1,000 stories with a combined word count of over 600,000, we investigate how linguistic elements like verb choices, evaluative expressions, and personal pronouns influence emotional connection and resilience. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and we analyze how different communication styles reflect interpersonal relationships, emotions and cultural values. Our initial findings suggest that the digital platform is playing an increasingly important role in helping patients, carers and communities to process grief and build emotional resilience. Hospice websites tend to use formal, structured language, whereas support forums offer more personal and emotive expressions. UK narratives frequently exhibit individual perspectives, whereas Hong Kong stories tend to emphasize family and communal support. These subtle differences reveal how carers and patients navigate grief in institutional and peer-led spaces across different cultures. This interdisciplinary research contributes to a deeper understanding of how language can support mental health and emotional adaptation during life’s most challenging periods. It also offers practical insights for improving hospice communication and support services across cultures. Acknowledging the lived experience of grief, we hope to support the wider goal of promoting well-being and resilience among palliative groups.enAnticipatory GriefTerminal IllDigital NarrativesResilienceHospice CareConference Paper