Narrative as“legal tender”:the semiotic meanings of“exchange”in Malcolm Bradbury’s Rates of Exchange

作     者：Yanfang Song 

作者机构：School of Foreign LanguagesSoochow UniversitySuzhouChina 

出 版 物：《Language and Semiotic Studies》 (语言与符号学研究（英文）)

年 卷 期：2024年第10卷第3期

页      面：343-366页

学科分类：0502[文学-外国语言文学] 050201[文学-英语语言文学] 05[文学] 

基　　金：supported by the Project of Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province in 2020 under No.20WWB008(“A Study of Cultural Geography in Contemporary Anglo-American Academic Fiction”) National Social Science Foundation Project in 2023 under No.23BWW035(“A Study on Social Changes and the Development of Humanities in Contemporary Anglo-American Academic Fiction”) 

主　　题：Rates of Exchange narrative Roland Barthes semiotics 

摘      要：Malcolm Bradbury’s novel Rates of Exchange,taking the economic term“rates of exchangeas a central metaphor,depicts various exchanges occurring in the socio-economic landscape of Britain during the 1970s and *** the context of governmental emphasis on economic development,the novel intricately explores exchanges among diverse entities,playing with multiple meanings of the term“exchange.In this way,the novel itself becomes a form of“legal tender,exchanged for reader comprehension,communication,and *** highlights the ubiquitous presence of exchange and the risks associated with the uncertain exchange rates between different ***,it invites readers to participate in the story-telling and the nostalgic journey back to British literary *** paper,drawing on Roland Barthes’s semiotic theory along with structuralist and poststructuralist concepts,investigates the multifaceted meanings of“exchangein the *** this analysis,the paper aims to illuminate the semiotic significance of various narrative forms and the profound thematic concerns in Bradbury’s work.