The programming paradigm that emphasizes the use of functions is known as functional programming. This paradigm treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids changing state or mutable data. Functional programming promotes the use of higher-order functions, first-class functions, and immutability. Languages like Haskell and Scala are designed to facilitate functional programming, encouraging cleaner, more maintainable code. This paradigm is especially valuable in concurrent and parallel processing due to its focus on pure functions and stateless operations.