acculturation

First attested in 1880; ad- (“toward”) +‎ culture +‎ -ation (“a process”); equivalent to acculturate +‎ -ion

• IPA^(key): /əˌkʌl.t͡ʃəˈɹeɪ.ʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

acculturation (countable and uncountable, plural acculturations)

1. A process by which the culture of a society changes on contact with a different one.
   • 1958, Melville J. Herskovits, Acculturation, Peter Smith, page 12:

     It would be difficult to designate the Ghost Dance of the Indians of North America, for instance, as anything but a phenomenon of acculturation; […] .

   • 1979, Johannes Wilbert, editor, Enculturation in Latin America, University of California, page 18:

     The cultural complex shows such power of survival mainly because its practitioners know how to adapt to modernization, including Western medicine, just as their ancestors knew how to adapt their careers and art to acculturation processes during the Conquest and subsequent eras.

2. A process by which a person acquires the culture of the society that they inhabit, starting at birth.

Some social scientists reverse the meanings of enculturation and acculturation.

• acclimation
• assimilation

From English acculturation.

• IPA^(key): /a.kyl.ty.ʁa.sjɔ̃/

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acculturation f (plural acculturations)

1. acculturation

• “acculturation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012