AMBIGUITAS  雙關法

WORD-PLAY which mainly consists in the deliberate artistic and playful display of expressions with several meanings within the given context, often but not always with sustained ambiguity.

雙關法 Sustained ambiguity as a deliberate rhetorical ploy.

Greek: amphibolia.

Hypernym
  • WORD-PLAYSPEECH ACT which does not only use words but plays with their form and content.WORD-PLAY
    • SPEECH ACTRHETORICAL TROPE in the form of a deliberate rhetorico-semantic act performed. [This definition is still a tentative stop-gap, and this category is far larger than I would like. It needs to be intelligently subdivided. CH]
      • RHETORICAL TROPE體裁詞格　RHETORICAL DEVICE mainly concerned with the structural semantics of expressions.
Hyponym
  • ADIANOETAAMBIGUITAS in which there is one obvious meaning and another hidden intended meaning.An expression that has an obvious superficial meaning and another unsuspected and underlying secret meaning.Greek: adianoeeton
    • AMBIGUITAS-OBSCOENA黃色雙關法 AMBIGUITAS in the form of deliberate unresolved ambiguity which demonstratively leaves room for a reading which is obscene.Commonly known as "amphibolia obscoena".
      EX: Shakespeare (from Lanham) "Dost thou hear, my honest friend?/ No, I hear not your honest friend. I hear you."

      REF: Miriam 66; 300

      Greek/Latin: Ambiguity as an intended rhetorical device was common in Greek and Latin. But rhetorical discussion of ambiguity was almost entirely as a stylistic vice.

      Ancient Chinese: Cases of deliberate sustained ambiguity in pre-Buddhist Chinese need careful study. There is an over-abundance of syntactically ambiguous phrases and sentences, but it is rarely easy to be certain whether any ambiguities were intended. Post-Buddhist jocular literature 笑林文學 provides many clear illustrations of intended ambiguities. Its predecessors need to be studied carefully.

      Rhetorical device locations: 2
      • 情史 必不能為義夫，

        義夫 1. faithful husband; 2. fighter for justice

      • 論語 我無所取材。」

        One suspects we may have one of the rare cases plays on a deliberate suspended ambiguity of the term 材 in this instance. But there is no way of being sure of this.