Acculturation refers to the psychological, social, and cultural transformation that takes place through direct contact between two cultures, wherein one or both engage in adapting to dominant cultural influences without compromising their essential distinctiveness. It occurs when an individual acquires, adopts, or adjusts to a new cultural environment as a result of being placed into another culture or when another culture is brought into contact. This balancing process can result in a mixed society with prevailing and blended features or with splintered cultural changes, depending on the sociopolitical atmosphere. Individuals from other cultures work toward fitting into a more prevalent culture by selectively integrating aspects of the dominant culture, such as its cultural traits and social norms, while still holding onto their original cultural values and traditions. The impacts of acculturation are experienced differently at various levels by both the adoptees of the mainstream culture and the hosts of the source culture. Outcomes can include marginalization, respectful coexistence, destructive tensions, integration, and cultural evolution.
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👉 Acculturation in the context of Indigenous language
An Indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its Indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an Indigenous language and an official language of Bolivia. Also, national languages are not necessarily Indigenous to the country.
Many Indigenous peoples worldwide have stopped the generational passage of their ancestral languages and have instead adopted the majority language as part of their acculturation into their host culture. Furthermore, many Indigenous languages have been subject to linguicide (language killing). Recognizing their vulnerability, the United Nations proclaimed 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages "to draw attention to the critical loss of Indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote Indigenous languages."
Acculturation in the context of Ethnic group
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities believe to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment. Ethnicities are maintained through long-term endogamy and may have a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry. Ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism. It is also used interchangeably with race although not all ethnicities identify as racial groups.
By way of assimilation, acculturation, amalgamation, language shift, intermarriage, adoption and religious conversion, individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes, which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from the parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a panethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity. Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis.
Acculturation in the context of Romanization (cultural)
Romanization or Latinization (Romanisation or Latinisation), in the historical and cultural meanings of both terms, indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire. The terms were used in ancient Roman historiography and traditional Italian historiography until the Fascist period, when the various processes were called the "civilizing of barbarians".
Acculturation in the context of Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this concept. A related term is "cultural integration", which describes the process of becoming economically and socially integrated into another society while retaining elements of one's original culture. Cultural assimilation is the opposite of multiculturalism (or a "cultural mosaic"), as assimilation involves a minority group adopting the dominant culture, while multiculturalism promotes the coexistence and preservation of multiple cultures. Another closely related concept is acculturation, which occurs through cultural diffusion and involves changes in the cultural patterns of one or both groups, while still maintaining distinct characteristics.
There are various types of cultural assimilation, including full assimilation and forced assimilation. Full assimilation is common, as it occurs spontaneously. Assimilation can also involve what is called additive assimilation, in which individuals or groups expand their existing cultural repertoire rather than replacing their ancestral culture. This is an aspect it shares with acculturation as well. When used as a political ideology, assimilationism refers to governmental policies of deliberately assimilating ethnic groups into a national culture. It encompasses both voluntary and involuntary assimilation.
Acculturation in the context of Cultural amalgamation
Cultural amalgamation refers to the process of mixing two cultures to create a new culture. It is often described as a more balanced type of cultural interaction than the process of cultural assimilation. Cultural amalgamation does not involve one group's culture changing another group's culture (acculturation) or one group adopting another group's culture (assimilation). Instead, a new culture results. This is the origin of cultural amalgamation. It is the ideological equivalent of the melting pot theory.
The term cultural amalgamation is often used in studies on post–civil rights era in the United States and contemporary era to describe the process of multiple cultures blending into a new, unique culture. For instance, the cultural amalgamation process happened with the fall of the Roman empire when the Middle Ages started and Roman Jewish/Christian culture and Germanic tribal cultures mixed with each other in the European continent. In present day, cultural amalgamation occurs with immigration.