Explanation
A real emotion may be intensified by an interpretation that remains uncertain. Repeating 'they have abandoned me' can increase anger although the only established fact is an unanswered message. The feeling is not unreal merely because the explanation contributing to it may be wrong. A counter-description retains known facts while exposing the contribution of the first formulation. 'I have had no reply since yesterday and do not yet know why' does not refute deliberate neglect; it prevents that possibility from masquerading as a finding. This is an analytical comparison, not an instruction to generate or suppress feelings on command.
Movement of thought
1. Identify the represented situation and selected details. 2. Distinguish observable display from reported experience. 3. Examine how words or images intensify the feeling. 4. Compare another factually adequate description. 5. Separate experiential force from evidential support.
Scientific use case
Rhetorical analysis can distinguish represented affective means from testimony about actual experience. Neither historical acting debates nor older experimental claims are treated as a complete contemporary psychology.
Example
Invented situation: Repeatedly telling a story as 'They are simply leaving me stranded' increases anger. Restating the unanswered message without an established motive makes the inferential contribution visible. The initial suspicion may later be confirmed; the growing feeling alone has not confirmed it.
Counterexample
No rule requires speakers to feel an emotion in order to move an audience. Tears, voice and posture do not reliably demonstrate sincerity. The profile offers no therapeutic exercise in reliving distress and no claim of complete emotional control.
Distinction
Self-persuasion foregrounds changed assent or decision. The two may interact and should not be divided into purely rational and purely emotional compartments. Audience pathos concerns another location of effect.
Effect on thought and perception
An emotion remains real while the language helping to organise it becomes open to examination.
Resonance
One's own sentence can return with emotional force. That resonance is an experience, not an independent witness to the event as described.
Etymology
The compound names a reflexive affecting. It does not establish that feelings are wholly controllable or caused by language alone.
Provenance
The HWdR dossier mediates rhetorical and theatrical debates about genuine emotional involvement. Wider philosophical uses remain distinct, and historical findings are not relabelled current research.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Self-affection: being moved by one's own presentation“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-ADD-20261020-0041. ATLAS 261, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261020-0041The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-20. Include your access date for precise references.
Guiding question
How does the way I describe an event change the feeling I experience myself?
Five coordinate questions
These descriptions explain the entry. They are not controlled register values and do not generate shared register results.
- Where can the process be observed?
Invented situation: Repeatedly telling a story as 'They are simply leaving me stranded' increases anger. Restating the unanswered message without an established motive makes the inferential contribution visible. The initial suspicion may later be confirmed; the growing feeling alone has not confirmed it.
- What happens to the material?
Identify the represented situation and selected details.
Distinguish observable display from reported experience.
Examine how words or images intensify the feeling.
Compare another factually adequate description.
Separate experiential force from evidential support.
- At what level does a change occur?
An emotion remains real while the language helping to organise it becomes open to examination.
- What temporal structure is explicitly described?
The steps offer an order of analysis, not an asserted real-time sequence of mental events. Read the particular example sequence separately from the historical development.
- How can the description be tested?
No rule requires speakers to feel an emotion in order to move an audience. Tears, voice and posture do not reliably demonstrate sincerity. The profile offers no therapeutic exercise in reliving distress and no claim of complete emotional control.
Historical context
The HWdR dossier mediates rhetorical and theatrical debates about genuine emotional involvement. Wider philosophical uses remain distinct, and historical findings are not relabelled current research.
Cross-language distinction and terminology
Self-affection is not self-love. An explanatory subtitle keeps the chosen rhetorical use visible alongside other philosophical meanings.
Scholarly comparisons and distinctions
These entries are editorial comparison anchors for the distinctions made in this article. They are not new canonical relation edges or shared register results.
Proposed thought pathway
- Identify the represented situation and selected details.
- Distinguish observable display from reported experience.
- Examine how words or images intensify the feeling.
- Compare another factually adequate description.
- Separate experiential force from evidential support.
An editorial exploration, not a necessary sequence of thought or experimental evidence of an effect.
Source scope and provenance
Both specialist versions are editorially accepted. The recorded scope of the reference-work research is retained; this is not a fresh full verification of every primary source. Examples and analytical steps are Atlas applications.