paradigm shift

English

WOTD – 26 August 2012

Etymology

Coined by physicist Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Noun

paradigm shift (plural paradigm shifts)

(sciences) A radical change in thinking from an accepted point of view to a new one, necessitated when new scientific discoveries produce anomalies in the current paradigm. [from 1962]
- 1996, Shahariz Abdul Aziz, Jeyakody Parthiban, Fuzzy Sets and Operations
  Fuzzy Set Theory was formalised by Professor Lofti Zadeh at the University of California in 1965. What Zadeh proposed is very much a paradigm shift that first gained acceptance in the Far East and its successful application has ensured its adoption around the world.
- 2007 June 27, Douglas H. Erwin, “Darwin still rules, but some biologists dream of a paradigm shift”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:
  The foundations for a paradigm shift may be in place, but it may be some time before we see whether a truly novel perspective develops or these tensions are accommodated within an expanded modern synthesis.
- 2012 August 12, John Naughton, “Thomas Kuhn: the man who changed the way the world looked at science”, in The Guardian‎:
  The trouble is that over longer periods unresolved anomalies accumulate and eventually get to the point where some scientists begin to question the paradigm itself. […] In the end, the crisis is resolved by a revolutionary change in world-view in which the now-deficient paradigm is replaced by a newer one. This is the paradigm shift of modern parlance and after it has happened the scientific field returns to normal science, based on the new framework. And so it goes on.
(by extension) Any radical change, especially in politics or technology.
- 2019 June 20, Kyle Buchanan, “Octavia Spencer: Studios Are Calling Me. That’s a Paradigm Shift.”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:
  So the fact that people are calling me, a woman of a certain age and demographic, to sit down on studio films — which have not been my bread and butter — there’s definitely a paradigm shift.
- 2022 March 9, Patrick Wintour, “Ukraine war marks paradigm shift on the scale of 9/11, says Liz Truss”, in The Guardian‎, ISSN 0261-3077:
  The Russian invasion of Ukraine is causing a paradigm shift on the scale of 9/11 in how democracy will confront future threats, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, will predict in Washington on Thursday.
- 2023 February 7, James Vincent, “Microsoft announces new Bing and Edge browser powered by upgraded ChatGPT AI”, in The Verge‎:
  Google, meanwhile, has been caught off guard by what some are claiming is a paradigm shift in how users find information on the web.

Translations

change in thinking from an accepted point of view to a new one, necessitated by scientific discoveries

Basque: paradigmaren aldaketa
Chinese:
Mandarin: please add this translation if you can
Czech: posun paradigmatu m
Dutch: paradigmawissel m, paradigmawisseling f
Finnish: paradigman muutos, ajattelutavan muutos
French: changement de paradigme (fr)
German: Paradigmenwechsel (de) m
Hungarian: paradigmaváltás (hu)
Italian: cambiamento di paradigma m, mutamento di paradigma m, scienza rivoluzionaria f
Japanese: パラダイムシフト (paradaimu shifuto)
Malay: anjakan paradigma
Norwegian:
Bokmål: paradigmeskifte n
Nynorsk: paradigmeskifte n
Portuguese: mudança de paradigma f
Russian: сме́на парадигм (sména paradigm)
Spanish: cambio de paradigma m
Swedish: paradigmskifte (sv) n

any radical change

Chinese:
Mandarin: please add this translation if you can
Finnish: paradigman muutos, ajattelutavan muutos
Malay: anjakan paradigma

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Icelandic: ^{(please verify)} hugarfarsbreyting f

References

Joe Miller (9 February 2018), “Are these the worst examples of business jargon?”, in BBC News‎, BBC