The last few weeks have all been looking at thematic analysis, leading up to the completion of the qualitative project using, yes you guessed it, thematic analysis. Once that assignment was submitted on Wednesday it was time to use this “break week” to catch up with studying after my break in Ireland. The topic for this week was language and meaning. It looked at whether language is uniquely human (maybe), different viewpoints as to how it came about (evolutionary advantage, social advantage, evolution of thought, all of the above), the processes involved in establishing meaning from identification of letters words and sentences all at the same time, and what it all means for psychology if language creates reality rather than describe it (some form of Cornish knot of reality and language). I’m still not sure if Kanzi understood language or not, but then no-one else seems to be sure either, and there seems to be a lot going on with excitation and inhibition at all levels of recognition. I’m not going to get involved with the tangle of language creating and describing and creating and describing and creating and describing reality, at least not whilst using language to do so.

Only one week of study material to go, then it’s a final assignment and working towards the exam in a month’s time.