An assertion can be understood to have four elements/characteristics—basic, emphatic, escalation, and linguistic. A basic assertion is the simplest to comprehend because it is basically asserts/proclaims opinions and beliefs. An emphatic assertion is like empathy (where it gets its name from) as it will proclaim an understanding of the situations or people. An escalation assertion is where a situation will be escalated as in “If you don’t lend me a dollar, I will tell people what you did last summer.” It’s almost like a threat of something that will happen if a basic assertion is not met or recognized. And, a linguistic assertion will be in the first person (meaning it will use the pronoun “I”). It will typically assert anger as in “I cannot believe you did that; I am so angry with you.”
