The term involves changing of are way of life through the impact of the other. Interest of American anthropologists to this kind of studies was induced by the culture area studies of Clark Wisner and the study of dynamics of contact initiated by Franz Boas.
A more direct influence was the obvious impact of civilized cultural life of North American Indian people. When two cultures are in proximity with each other and there is mutual exchange of culture traits so that each one of it affects the life of the other, the phenomenon is called acculturation.
Thus, Linton, Redfield Herskowits, Hallowell and Beal’s have made important contributions towards the development of a body of explanatory concepts relating to acculturation.
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According to Herokiwits, when a growing child learns to confirm to his own cultural traditions the process may be called as ‘Enculturation’. It is equated to the process what sociologists call as ‘socialization’, i.e. a child learning the rules of educate and becoming familiar to the Social-Cultural life of the society or cultural traits and complexes between two Evolution, Social Structure and Organisation cultures the phenomenon may be called as ‘Transculturation’.
When, as consequence of transculturation one way of life is gradually displaced by the other, the phenomenon is known as ‘Acculturation’. As such, acculturation may ultimately result in loss of cultural identity of one of the two cultures—the phenomenon if called as ‘Assimilation’.
At this stage the process of acculturation ceases. But very often it does not happen. At first, the dominated culture breaks down but later a tendency of revivalism develops as a reaction to the loss of cultural identity. Such a reaction is called as ‘Contra-acculturation’.
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The impetus to the acculturation study was provided by the realization that purity of culture is a false notion. Unless completely isolated from the outside world, every culture is subjected to influence that it experiences from surrounding cultures.
To that extent every culture is open to the influences of the other cultures. Hence an authentic studies concerning the present were found to be theoretically more fruitful the refreshing than the conjectural studies of the infusionists about trying to find out what happened in the past.
However, the concepts of diffusion and acculturation can be distinguished. While acculturation is a two way process, diffusion may be only one sided affair. Acculturation entails diffusion.