禪對話中的雙關語幽默－－「幽默失諧」

Humorous Incongruity and Punning Humor in Chan Dialogues

Puns are a form of speech play which used to be regarded, in the English speaking world, as 'high art and quite appropriate for serious topics' (Sherzer 1985: 215), but today they are considered most often as a language form which is 'humorous in intention, inappropriate for serious discourse, but highly appropriate for much advertising' (ibid). This paper is devoted to a socio-cognitive-pragmatic analysis of Chan masters' use of puns in interacting with their disciples or other Chan masters. Its focus is the linguistic mechanisms and interpretation processes involved. The analysis demonstrates that punning humor concerns linguistic ambiguity due to homonymy or polysemy in language, as proposed in Attardo (1994) and Norrick (1986). Punning humor production involves the violation of Grice's Maxims of conversation. Its interpretation relies on the generic feature of verbal humour - humorous incongruity, as advocated in Lai (2007). Specific to the pun in Chan is its being a means employed by Chan masters to achieve certain serious purposes.在英語世界裡，雙關語一直以來被視為一種「適合於嚴肅話題的高貴藝術」（Sherzer 1985：215）。而當今的學者認為雙關語「具幽默意圖，不適合嚴肅話題」（Sherzer 1985：215）。然而別於一般幽默之使用，中國唐代禪師所使用的幽默雙關語有其嚴肅之目的。本論文從社會認知語用的角度，著重雙關語所涉及的語言機制及詮釋過程，分析中國唐代禪師於禪對話中所使用的雙關語。雙關語之幽默跟語言的多義現象有關，幽默現象的發生是說話者自身違背了Gric的對話原則，致使聽話者（詮釋者）經歷到言語幽默的共通特質─「幽默失諧」。