數位人文視野下《三言》反映的商人與商業

Abstract

《三言》為明代馮夢龍陸續編纂出版的白話短篇話本小說集，是《喻世明言》、《警世通言》和《醒世恆言》三本話本集的簡稱。《三言》的出版恰逢明代中後期商業逐漸繁榮、商人地位逐步提升，故事內容受社會風氣影響，雖非以商人或商業活動為核心，但情節的改編順應時代趨勢呈現肯定商業活動的價值觀。過往人文研究多在分析商人的形象，較少全面統整《三言》出現的商人類型、販賣的商品種類等資訊。縱使人文領域的《三言》研究已相當多元且成果豐碩，但目前仍少以數位人文研究方法進行探究，且公開之電子文本網站也缺少全文檢索等數位工具的功能。因此本研究透過DocuSky數位人文學術研究平臺的輔助，以商人與商業為文本標記的主題，替《三言》建立能夠提升閱讀檢索效率的資料庫。本研究使用DocuSky文本批次標記工具與碼庫思文本標記工具，將商人類別、商鋪類型、時間、行商地點、商品種類等八個項目加以標記，完成後利用DocuSky的格式轉換工具進行資料庫的建置。本研究標記《三言》涉及商人與商業的篇章共42篇，八個標記項目共標記496個詞彙，合計15,138次。其中商人類別、商鋪類型、商品種類皆依據詞彙的性質細分為五類，例如：商人類別共標記56個詞彙，分作「行商」、「經紀」、「手工業」、「民生產業」、「其他」五類。本研究發現經由資料庫的輔助，可從遠讀的視角跳脫篇章的限制，利用資料庫的全文檢索、後分類功能以及綴詞分析，提升閱讀效率；透過平台串接之數位工具生成視覺化圖表，能幫助找出不同標記項目之間的關聯性、挖掘新興的研究問題。未來若延伸探討話本小說反映的商人與商業，建議加入明代凌濛初的《初刻拍案驚奇》、《二刻拍案驚奇》；此外話本小說的資料庫應用並不多，若持續發展定能為小說的閱讀與研究帶來助益。"San Yan", a collection of vernacular short stories compiled and published by Feng Menglong during the Ming dynasty, includes the three story collections "Yu Shi Ming Yan", "Jing Shi Tong Yan", and "Xing Shi Heng Yan". The publication of "San Yan" coincided with the gradual prosperity of commerce and the rising status of merchants in the mid to late Ming period. Although the stories were not centered around merchants or commercial activities, the adaptation of the plots reflected the era's trendof affirming the value of commerce. Previous humanities research has mostly focused on analyzing the image of merchants, with less emphasis on comprehensively organizing information about the types of merchants and the goods they traded as depicted in"San Yan." While research on "San Yan" in the humanities field is already quite diverse and fruitful, there has been little exploration using digital humanities research methods, and publicly available electronic text websites lack digital tools such as full-text search functions. Therefore, this study, aided by the DocuSky digital humanities research platform, establishes a database that enhances reading and search efficiency for "San Yan," focusing on the themes of merchants and commerce through textual annotation.This study uses the DocuSky batch text annotation tool and the MARKUS text annotation tool to tag eight categories, including merchant types, types of shops, time, trade locations, and types of goods. After completing the annotation, the database was built using DocuSky's format conversion tool. The study annotated 42 chapters of "San Yan" that involve merchants and commerce, marking a total of 496 terms across eight annotation categories, with a combined frequency of 15,138 occurrences. Among them, the categories of merchant types, types of shops, and types of goods were further subdivided into five subcategories based on the nature of the terms. For example, the merchant category included 56 terms divided into five types: "itinerant merchants," "brokers," "craftsmen," "livelihood industries," and "others." The study found that, with the assistance of the database, readers could transcend the limitations of individual chapters by taking a distant reading approach. The full-text search, post-classification functions, and collocation analysis provided by the database improve reading efficiency. The visualization tools connected through the platform can help uncover correlations between different annotation categories and explore emerging research questions. In the future, if research on merchants and commerce reflected in vernacular short stories is extended, it is recommended to include Ling Mengchu's "Amazing Tales: First Series" and "Amazing Tales: Second Series" from the Ming dynasty. Furthermore, there are currently few applications of databases for vernacular short stories, and continued development in this area could greatly benefit the reading and research of such literature.