The world has changed forever: Semiotic reflections on the experience of sudden change

From a semiotic point of view, the experience of sudden change can involve either an excess of signs or an absence of signs, both of which lead to an incapacity to form coherent representations and, thus, understandings. The comparative study of ethnographic and historical accounts of sudden change requires attention to contextual contingencies, the role of semiotic markers, degrees of heightened consciousness, and modes of symbolic indirection.