Critically evaluate the claim that discourse analysis could become the dominant paradigm for psychology in the future.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the sciences are described as “going through alternating periods of ‘normal science’, when an existing model of reality dominates a protracted period of puzzle solving and revolution, until the model of reality itself undergoes a sudden drastic change” (Kuhn, 1996. Pg 56). Also known as a ‘paradigm shift’ (Handa, 1986). The purpose of the current study is to define and analyse the theoretical concept of discourse analysis (DA) and its application as the potential new dominant paradigm in modern psychology.

Kuhn (1996), defined a paradigm a set of theoretical concepts and research, unified by a framework that describes what is/ isn’t accepted in a specific area of scientific research. Paradigms have two distinguished aspects, namely a set of core experiments that are exemplary and therefore likely to be reproduced and underpinning preconceptions that condition the evidence collected in the experiments. However early theorists considered paradigms conceptually inappropriate for the social sciences such as psychology compared to their natural science counterparts, citing that there are no paradigms in social science as the concepts are polysemic (Kuhn, 1996; Dogan, 2001). Paradigms have also been described as a perspective of the world or worldview (Fassinger, 2005), a term used to describe a specific set of experiences, beliefs and values that the individual uses in order to interpret reality.

However opposing theorists (Ponterotto, 2005) have highlighted that even though the broad groupings in the social sciences are not derived from paradigms present in the natural sciences, the individual sub-disciplines may still be underpinned by a paradigm or a research programme with similar rese...

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...e cited this as another major limitation of discourse analysis, stating that the array of options available through the various methods can create inconsistencies and render issues of methodology problematic. In terms of application, discourse analysis involves a re-design of the topic through the study of interactional order (Schiffrin, Tannen and Hamilton, 2008).

The constant desire to understand the function of language and discourse facilitates positive individual and social change. It is discourse analysis’s unique and innovative method of interpreting reality and giving meaning to social constructs through language that has pushed it to the forefront of modern psychology and presented a critical challenge to existing dominant paradigms such as behavioural and psychoanalytical, highlighting its potential to become the new dominant paradigm in psychology.