My research interests fall within the general areas of phonology, phonetics, and language acquisition.

I am primarily interested in how people learn the phonological patterns of their language(s), which biases they bring to the learning process, and how we can model the phonological grammar, both in terms of what is learned and how it is learned.

I am co-director of the UCL Laboratory for Language and Speech Diversions (LLSD).

Jump to my publications, presentations, teaching, or information for students.

Sundara, M., White, J., Kim, Y. J. & Chong, A. J. (in press). Stem similarity modulates infants' acquisition of phonological alternations. Cognition.

Martin, A. & White, J. (in press). Vowel harmony and disharmony are not equivalent in learning. Linguistic Inquiry.

Silva, M. C., Nevins, A. & White, J. (2020). Domains and prominence in nasal harmonization of Maxakalí loanwords. International Journal of American Linguistics, 86(2), 285–321.

Yin, S. H. & White, J. (2018). Neutralization and homophony avoidance in phonological learning. Cognition, 179, 89–101.

White, J., Kager, R., Linzen, T., Markopoulos, G., Martin, A., Nevins, A., Peperkamp, S., Polgárdi, K., Topintzi, N., & van de Vijver, R. (in press). Preference for locality is affected by the prefix/suffix asymmetry: Evidence from artificial language learning. Proceedings of NELS 48.

White, J. & Chiu, F. (2017). Disentangling phonological well-formedness and attestedness: An ERP study of onset clusters in English. Acta Linguistica Academica, 64(4), 512–538.

White, J. (2017). Accounting for the learnability of saltation in phonological theory: A maximum entropy model with a P-map bias. Language, 93(1), 1–36. [ Supplementary materials ]

Hayes, B. & White, J. (2015). Saltation and the P-map. Phonology, 32(2), 1–36.

Garellek, M. & White, J. (2015). Phonetics of Tongan stress. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45(1), 13–34.

White, J. & Sundara, M. (2014). Biased generalization of newly learned phonological alternations by 12-month-old infants. Cognition, 133(1), 85–90.

White, J. (2014). Evidence for a learning bias against saltatory phonological alternations. Cognition, 130(1), 96–115.  [ List of stimuli ]

White, J. (2013). Bias in phonological learning: Evidence from saltation. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA.

Hayes, B. & White, J. (2013). Phonological naturalness and phonotactic learning. Linguistic Inquiry, 44(1), 45–75.  [ Supplementary materials ]

Garellek, M. & White, J. (2012). Stress correlates and vowel targets in Tongan. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 110, 65–85.

Daland, R., Hayes, B., White, J., Garellek, M., Davis, A. & Norrmann, I. (2011). Explaining sonority projection effects. Phonology, 28(2), 197–234.

White, J. (2011). Experimental evidence for pre-lexical inhibition in spoken word recognition. M.A. thesis, UCLA.

Garellek, M. & White, J. (2009). Acoustic correlates of stress and their use in diagnosing syllable fusion in Tongan. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 108, 35–65.

Song, H. & White, J. (2020). Paradigm uniformity and neutralization avoidance in phonological learning. 94th Meeting of the LSA.

Song, H. & White, J. (2019). Paradigm uniformity and neutralization avoidance in phonological learning. Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP).

Song, H. & White, J. (2019). Paradigm uniformity inhibits regularization during phonological learning. OCP 16.

White, J., Silva, M. C. & Nevins, A. (2018). Revisiting Maxakalí nasal harmony: Evidence from loanwords and modeling. Big Data Big Theory symoposium, Sheffield. [slides]

White, J., Kager, R., Linzen, T., Markopoulos, G., Martin, A., Nevins, A., Peperkamp, S., Polgárdi, K., Topintzi, N. & van de Vijver, R. (2017). Preference for locality is affected by the prefix/suffix asymmetry: Evidence from artificial language learning. NELS. [slides]

White, J., Topintzi, N., Markopoulos, G., van de Vijver, R., Kager, R., Linzen, T., Martin, A., Nevins, A., Peperkamp, S., & Polgárdi, K. (2017). Universal biases and L1 transfer in vowel harmony: Insights from artificial grammar learning experimentation. Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Theory.

White, J., Kager, R., Linzen, T., Markopoulos, G., Martin, A., Nevins, A., Peperkamp, S., Polgárdi, K., Topintzi, N. & van de Vijver, R. (2017). Preference for locality is affected by the prefix/suffix asymmetry: Evidence from artificial language learning. MFM. [slides]

Chiu, F. & White, J. (2016). Disentangling sonority and attestedness: An EEG study of onset clusters in English. OCP 13.

Yin, H. & White, J. (2016). Neutralization avoidance and naturalness in artificial language learning. 90th Meeting of the LSA. [slides]

Yin, H. & White, J. (2015). Neutralization avoidance and naturalness in the learning of palatalization. Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP). [slides]

White, J. & Robillard, S. (2015). Variable schwa realization in Laurentian French: A MaxEnt grammar approach. 23rd MFM. [slides]

White, J., Kim, Y., Chong, A. & Sundara, M. (2015). Phonetic similarity as a bias in infant phonological learning. 37th Annual Meeting of the DGfS. [slides]

White, J., Sundara, M., Kim, Y. & Chong, A. (2014). Infant learning of phonological alternations is biased by phonetic similarity. Workshop on Learning Biases in Natural and Artificial Language Acquisition, LAGB.  [poster]

White, J. (2014). Role of perceptual similarity in learning phonological alternations. MOLT Phonology Workshop.  [slides]

White, J. (2014). Learning alternations in a maximum entropy model: The role of perceptual similarity. 88th Meeting of the LSA.  [slides]

White, J. (2013). Role of perceptual similarity in the acquisition of phonological alternations: A biased Maximum Entropy learning model. 38th BUCLD.  [slides]

Sundara, M., Kim, Y., White, J. & Chong A. (2013). There is no pat in patting: Acquisition of phonological alternations by English-learning 12-month-olds. 38th BUCLD.  [slides]

White, J. & Sundara, M. (2012). Infant biases in the learning of phonological alternations. 37th BUCLD.  [slides]

White, J. (2012). On the learnability of saltatory phonological alternations. LabPhon 13.  [poster]

White, J. (2012). Evidence for a learning bias against “satlatory” phonological alternations in artificial language learning. 86th Meeting of the LSA.  [slides]

White, J. & Garellek, M. (2011). Acoustic correlates of stress and their use in diagnosing syllable fusion in Tongan. 161st Meeting of the ASA.  [poster]

White, J. & Garellek, M. (2011). Acoustic correlates of stress and their use in diagnosing syllable fusion in Tongan. 18th Meeting of AFLA.  [slides]

White, J. & Sundara, M. (2010). Experimental evidence for phoneme-level inhibition in spoken word recognition. 160th Meeting of the ASA.  [poster]

White, J. (2009). Looking for phoneme-level inhibition in spoken word recognition using auditory lexical decision. 158th Meeting of the ASA.  [poster]

I regularly teach modules at UCL on introductory phonetics for undergraduates (PLIN1101) and postgraduates (PLING113), as well as advanced phonological theory for undergraduates (PLIN3103 and PLIN3104) and postgraduates (PLING211 and PLING213).

I gave two talks (a keynote and a tutorial) at the 2021 Edinburgh Virtual Workshop on Artificial Langauge Learning (EVWALL). The slides from these can be accessed below.

I also taught a mini-course on ‘Universal biases in phonological learning’ at the 2015 Advanced Core Training in Linguistics (ACTL) summer school. The slides from this course can be accessed below:

Information for undergraduate and Masters students seeking letters of recommendation