Mental Processes Of "Affection"

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 68, 69):

As far as inclination and obligation is concerned, the subjectivity of a speaker's assessment can be made explicit through first person, present tense mental processes of affection (e.g. I want, I need, I'd like, I'd hate). …

 

Blogger Comments:

Importantly, these are mental processes of desideration, which can project proposals, not mental processes of emotion, which cannot. The term 'affection' obscures this important distinction, and aligns more with emotion than desideration.

The notion of mental processes of affection has an interesting history. Matthiessen (1995: 263) claims that Halliday (1985: 267) uses the term to include both desiderative and mental processes:

cf. for example, IFG p. 267 — note that the IFG type AFFECTIVE groups together DESIDERATIVE and EMOTIVE

but the wording of Halliday (1985: 267) provides no evidence for this interpretation:

In (b), however, the clause that Cæsar was dead, although it is a projection, it is not projected by Mark Antony regretted, which is a clause of affection not of cognition.

Since the clause in question is a clause of emotion, Halliday's (1985, 1994) term 'affection' simply stands for the later term 'emotion' — an interpretation which Matthiessen himself supports in his editions of IFG (2004, 2014), by substituting the term 'emotion' for 'affection'; e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 476):

In (b), however, the clause that Caesar was dead, although it is a projection, is not projected by Mark Antony regretted, which is a clause of emotion not of cognition.