Page 164 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

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Paradigm In general terms a paradigm can be understood as a field or domain of
knowledge that embraces a specific vocabulary and set of practices. In the
philosophy of science the concept of a paradigm is associated with the writing of
Thomas Kuhn, for whom a paradigm is a widely recognized field of understanding
or achievement in science that provides model problems and solutions to the
community of practitioners. Here a paradigm lays down the guiding principles and
conceptual achievements of a working model that attracts adherents and enables
‘normal science’ to proceed.
Kuhn argues that science periodically overthrows its own paradigms so that a
period of stable ‘normal science’ is commonly preceded by the overthrow of the
existing paradigmatic wisdom. This revolutionary process is known as a paradigm
shift. An example would be the substitution of Copernican science by a Newtonian
paradigm or the subsequent displacement of classical physics by quantum
mechanics. Having said this, the concept of a paradigm may also be deployed in the
context of the humanities and social sciences where various ‘perspectives’
(functionalism, symbolic interactionism, structuralism, poststructuralism etc.)
might be grasped as paradigms. Thus, Stuart Hall describes culturalism and
structuralism as key paradigms in the development of cultural studies.
The idea of the paradigmatic also forms a part of semiotics in that, for Saussure,
meaning is produced through the selection and combination of signs along the
syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. The syntagmatic axis is constituted by the
linear combination of signs that form sentences while paradigmatic refers to the
field of signs (i.e., synonyms) from which any given sign is selected. Meaning is
accumulated along the syntagmatic axis, while selection from the paradigmatic field
alters meaning at any given point in the sentence. For example, in Figure 2 on the
paradigmatic axis, the selection of freedom fighter or terrorist is of meaningful
significance. It alters what we understand the character of the participants to be.
Further it will influence the combination along the syntagmatic axis, since it is by
convention unlikely, though grammatically acceptable, to combine terrorist with
liberated.

(Paradigmatic)
Freedom fighters
Terrorists
Attacked (Syntagmatic)
Liberated
Figure 2

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