Misrepresenting 'Threat' As An Emotion

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 120-1, 239n):

An additional opposition proposed by Darwin (1872) is between facial movements interpreted as ‘fear’ and ‘anger’. For Darwin, ‘fear’ is a feeling caused by the anticipation that one could be harmed (which we interpret as a response to what might happen, i.e. an irrealis trigger) and ‘anger’ is a feeling that might result in one harming others (which we interpret as a response to something real happening, i.e. a realis trigger). In the network of FACIAL AFFECT in Figure 5.3 [fear] and [anger] are opposing features of [threat]. Each feature is realised through a different set of facial expressions shown in italics. In the intersemiosis of facial expression and the unfolding storyline in language and action, the facial feature [fear] is interpretable as negative and irrealis, that is, it is a negative emotional response to what might happen. In contrast the feature [anger] is interpretable as negative and realis, an emotional response to what is happening or has happened.

Blogger Comments;

[1] As previously explained, the title Darwin (1872), The expression of the emotions in man and animals, demonstrates that the meanings here are protolinguistic, since other animals do not express the meanings of language. So, to model protolanguage as language, as FACIAL AFFECT, is theoretically invalid. On Halliday's model, the expression of emotion serves the personal microfunction of protolanguage. 

[2] To be clear, here the authors misrepresent the result of anger (harming others) as the reason for it (trigger).

[3] To be clear, in Figure 5.3, the authors misrepresent 'threat' as an emotion, with its result (fear) and cause (anger) as its subtypes.

[4] Again, the system in Figure 5.3 confirms the fact that here the authors model paralanguage as a bi-stratal semiotic system, and although this is consistent with the notion of a semiotic system, it is inconsistent with the preceding chapters in which paralanguage is misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. Where in previous chapters it was just paralinguistic expression that was semovergent with language, in this chapter it is both paralinguistic content and expression that is semovergent with language.