Reality: The Search for Objectivity or the Quest for a Compelling Argument
Humberto R. Maturana · A published discussion of emotioning and rationality as part of the flow of human life.
Examine the cited sourcePsy-chology · language and process · P—52
Emotion
—ing.
A word for what happens while emotion changes
“How are you emotioning today?” asks about a living process: what is being felt, how it is changing and what it may lead us to understand or do.
Explore the meaning ↓Evidence proposal prepared for Oxford English Dictionary editors on 20 September 2026. An earlier online form attempt has no confirmed receipt or reference number. OED submission and acceptance are not established.
Why give this process a name?
An emotion is a state. Emotioning describes its movement.
We often ask a person to name an emotion: happy, afraid, angry, hopeful. A label can be useful, but it may leave out how bodily signals, interpretation, memory, circumstance and expectation are shaping that state from one moment to the next.
The author began using emotioning as a working psychological function to make that movement easier to discuss. It helped clarify questions that seemed tangled when only the final emotion label was available. The point is to use a helpful distinction, not to claim ownership of the word.
Published uses already exist. The accompanying paper asks dictionary editors to consider whether the word merits its own entry or sense, with a process meaning supported by dated evidence.
Proposed definition
The process has a place in the sentence.
“The continuing process or flow through which emotions arise, change and influence perception, reasoning, relationships and potential action.”
This is the author's proposed definition for editorial consideration. It is not presented as an OED definition.
A practical distinction
From a signal to a possible response.
These are proposed working distinctions, not five rigid or universal steps. They help keep observation, experience, interpretation, state and action separate.
- 01
Sensing
Information arrives from the body or the world.
- 02
Feeling
A sensed condition is registered and interpreted.
- 03
Emotioning
Feeling meets context, memory, identity, needs, expectations and possible consequences over time.
- 04
Emotion
A recognisable state or label can be named within that continuing process.
- 05
Action tendency
A possible response becomes available; it is not yet an action.
The evidence gathered
Usage before this proposal.
The prepared paper gives short quotations and full references for editorial checking. These examples support a request to examine the word's history; they do not establish coinage by this author.
The origin and conservation of self-consciousness
Humberto Maturana Romesín · Uses emotioning to describe a relational background that changes from moment to moment.
Examine the cited sourceThe Origin of Humanness in the Biology of Love
Humberto Maturana Romesín and Gerda Verden-Zöller · Places emotioning beside reasoning in an account of how people change.
Examine the cited sourceCritical Emotioning and Critical Thinking: Improving Second Language Learning
Elham Zandvakili and Omid R. Zandvakili · Applies the term to emotion and critical thinking in a classroom.
Examine the cited sourceWhat the distinction can do
Ask how a feeling is taking shape.
In conversation or education, “How are you emotioning?” can invite someone to notice change and context without requiring a single fixed label. It offers language for a process that can be revisited as more becomes known.
The paper also proposes a technical use for Klatou and Alice: sensor evidence, inferred feeling, emotioning, an emotional state, possible action, consequence and learning. That sequence is a model for describing a system. It does not prove subjective experience or give direct access to another being's private experience.
Prepared submission · preserved source
Read the complete evidence proposal.
The paper contains the form-ready entry, proposed definition, dated quotations and references, lexical distinctions, applications and the official submission route. Its original DOCX is preserved unchanged; the PDF is a reading copy.
What has been requested
A dictionary review of an attested use.
The proposal asks the Oxford English Dictionary to consider emotioning as an independent verbal noun or a missing sense. Its suggested significance is a missing headword or sense supported by published examples from 1988 to 2021. It does not ask the OED to determine who first coined the term.
The form-ready entry proposes noun (verbal noun or gerund), with pronunciations /ɪˈməʊʃənɪŋ/ in British English and /ɪˈmoʊʃənɪŋ/ in US English. The example is “How are you emotioning today?” These are suggestions in the author's submission document, open to editorial review.
The paper was prepared for submission, but the earlier form attempt has no confirmed completion. Publication here makes the evidence available for reading and correction; it is not a claim that OED editors received, assessed or accepted it.
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