Abstract:The Bath and A Small, Good Thing were both masterpieces of Raymond Carver, the representative of American minimalist writer. The minimalism writing style was obvious in The Bath. It had less descriptive words, short conversations, and an opening ending. As the extended version of The Bath, A Small, Good Thing was more complete in terms of plots and conversations. The characterization in The Bath and A Small, Good Thing was distinct from one another. The protagonists in A Small, Good Thing were more vividly presented and more emotional when comparing to the indifferent images of the protagonists in The Bath. The difference was largely due to the different conversations made in the two stories. This paper will incorporate discourse analysis to analyze the conversations in The Bath and A Small, Good Thing. The use of naming, interjection, repetition, vulgar languages and cooperative principles all had certain influences when determine characterization and thus further affected the tone of the story. The conversations were longer and the content was richer in A Small, Good Thing and it solved the problem of uncertainty by giving the story a closed ending. A Small, Good Thing was, without a doubt, a minimalist story with the simple sentence pattern and succinct writing style. The story was more mature in content and structure and thus made it a better story than The Bath.
Key words: conversations; discourse analysis; characterization; The Bath; A Small, Good Thing; Raymond Carver
摘要:卡佛是美国极简主义小说代表人物。《洗澡》与《好事一小件》都可作为卡佛的代表作。《洗澡》有极简主义小说的明显特征：没有过多描述性话语、对话简练并且是开放式结局。作为《洗澡》的加长版，《好事一小件》在情节和对话上都更加完整。《洗澡》和《好事一小件》中的人物形象有着明显的差异。相较于《洗澡》中父母和医生的中立冷漠形象，《好事一小件》中的主人公都更加生动、更富情感，而这种差异主要是由两文中对话不同造成的。本文运用对话分析的原则对《洗澡》和《好事一小件》中的人物对话进行对比分析。人物命名、插入语、重复、粗话以及合作原则的不同使用都对小说人物形象塑造有着影响，而故事的基调也从而受到影响。《好事一小件》中的人物对话更长、内容更加丰富，而文章的封闭式结局也解决了《洗澡》中的不确定性问题。毫无疑问，有着简单句式和简练文风的《好事一小件》是极简主义作品。而它内容和文章结构的成熟也使得它比《洗澡》更加优秀。
关键词：对话; 语篇分析; 人物形象塑造; 《洗澡》; 《好事一小件》; 卡佛
