Adel Chaouch-Orozco

Adel Chaouch-Orozco

Assistant Professor, City University of Hong Kong

I’m a psycholinguist interested in how we represent and process meaning. My research centres on lexical-semantic representation and processing in monolinguals and bi-/multilinguals, with a particular focus on how meaning is stored and retrieved, and how semantic representations are shaped by culture, cognition, and emotion.

To study these questions, I combine psycholinguistic experiments with computational methods, such as word embeddings and large language models (LLMs) and network science. My broader research also examines second language acquisition and the development of tools for language proficiency assessment.

adel.chaouchorozco@cityu.edu.hk

Research

Lexical-Semantic Processing

How we store and retrieve word meanings in semantic memory.

Bilingual Cognition

Cross-linguistic influence, translation equivalence, and lexical organization in bilinguals.

Semantic Networks

Using network science to model mental lexicon structure and language attrition.

Language & Emotion

How emotion concepts vary across languages and cultures.

Selected Publications

Cultural attitudes towards the future shape the semantic structure of emotion concepts
Chaouch-Orozco, A., Li, X., & Li, P.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2026
Network science reveals the early signs of L1 lexical attrition
Chaouch-Orozco, A. & Martin-Villena, F.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2025
Digits switch differently: Evidence of divergent cognitive control mechanisms
Chaouch-Orozco, A. & Liu, H.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2025
Are translation equivalents really equivalent? Evidence from concreteness effects
Chaouch-Orozco, A., Gonzalez Alonso, J., Dunabeitia, J.A., & Rothman, J.
International Journal of Bilingualism, 2024