cultural contact

Definition of Cultural Contact

(noun) The occurrence of two or more cultures coming into contact with each through conquest, immigration, mass media, trade, or travel.

Examples of Cultural Contact

• When a foreign exchange student visits their host country.
• When Native Americans in North America met Europeans for the first time.

Cultural Contact Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: cul·tur·al con·tact

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /ˈkʌlʧərəl ˈkɑnˌtækt/
• British English – /ˈkʌlʧərəl ˈkɒntækt/

Usage Notes

• Plural: cultural contacts
• After cultural contact occurs, acculturation describes what happens on a societal and cultural level and enculturation describes what happens on an individual level.
• Sociologist study how innovations lead to social acceptance in a cross-cultural dimension such as how different societies react to the rise of the Internet.
• Also called cultural accommodation.

Related Quotation

• “The kind of person we become depends greatly on what we learn during our formative years from our surrounding social groups and social environment” (Kendall 2006:105).

Related Video

Additional Information

• Word origin of “cultural” and “contact” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Baron, Robert A., and Ana C. Cara. 2011. Creolization as Cultural Creativity. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi.
• Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1997. Dinner Talk: Cultural Patterns of Sociability and Socialization in Family Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Chari, Sharad, and Stuart Corbridge, eds. 2008. The Development Reader. London: Routledge.
• Cherry, Andrew L. 1994. The Socializing Instincts: Individual, Family, and Social Bonds. Westport, CT: Praeger.
• Hoerder, Dirk. 2011. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Maynard, Ashley E., and Mary I. Martini, eds. 2005. Learning in Cultural Context: Family, Peers, and School. New York: Springer.
• Paterson, Alistair. 2011. A Millennium of Cultural Contact. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast.
• Rogoff, Barbara. 2003. The Cultural Nature of Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press.

Related Terms

• acculturation
• culture
• enculturation
• group
• individual
• innovation
• norm
• power
• social acceptance
• socialization

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Reference

Kendall, Diana. 2006. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Works Consulted

Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan Turner. 2006. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 5th ed. London: Penguin.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 5th ed. 2011. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Bruce, Steve, and Steven Yearley. 2006. The SAGE Dictionary of Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Collins English Dictionary: Complete and Unabridged. 6th ed. 2003. Glasgow, Scotland: Collins.

Jary, David, and Julia Jary. 2000. Collins Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd ed. Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins.

Macmillan. (N.d.) Macmillan Dictionary. (https://www.macmillandictionary.com/).

Merriam-Webster. (N.d.) Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/).

Oxford University Press. (N.d.) Oxford Dictionaries. (https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/).

Princeton University. 2010. WordNet. (https://wordnet.princeton.edu/).

Random House Webster’s College Dictionary. 1997. New York: Random House.

Scott, John, and Gordon Marshall. 2005. A Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Turner, Bryan S., ed. 2006. The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/).

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary. Wikimedia Foundation. (http://en.wiktionary.org).

Cite the Definition of Cultural Contact

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “cultural contact.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved January 16, 2025 (https://sociologydictionary.org/cultural-contact/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

cultural contact. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/cultural-contact/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “cultural contact.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed January 16, 2025. https://sociologydictionary.org/cultural-contact/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“cultural contact.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 16 Jan. 2025. <https://sociologydictionary.org/cultural-contact/>.