Terminologies related to the concept 

Culture: Culture denotes ‘the way of life’ of a society or group of people. It is a paradigm that filters our ability to interpret the world. We can easily distinguish between British and Indian cultures by spoken and body language, beliefs, habits and cuisine.  Culture can be defined as the set of shared and inherited ideas, attitudes, values, goals, practices, beliefs and cumulative deposit of knowledge and experiences that determines social action, sense of individual identity and people’s attitude to interpret and making sense of the world.

Cultural traits: denote the features or characteristics of a culture, recognized in terms of language, customs, traditions, beliefs or faith, dress, music, images, food, festivals and even appearance.

Cultural ethnocentrism:  is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to that of other cultures. It is a form of reductionism that reduces the “other way” of life by interpreting it from one’s own perspective.

Cultural hybridization:  denotes mixing or blending of different cultural traits and elements of different cultures and the consequent emergence of a new, unique culture. Language and music are the most common examples of hybridization in the globalized world.  Many African countries speak french and mix it in with their native language, creating new lexicon. US pop music mixing with South Korean music such as K-pop group, South Korean boy band BTS symbolizes cultural hybridization.

Cultural diffusion: It is the process of spreading of one mainstream culture from it’s origin to another place. Cultural traits can be diffused both in real or virtual space (cyberspace) in a number of ways such as mass tourism, movement of workers or migrants, through trade and spread of transnational corporations. For example, Indian restaurants in London or New York. Two of the popular Hollywood films in the U.S. “Hidden Dragon” and “Mulan” were originally adapted from China.

Cultural dilution: signifies the weakening of the mainstream cultural traits as a result of diffusion and contact with other cultures.

Cultural homogenization or convergence: is the mixing of different cultures that results in the rise of single-common global culture. It refers to the reduction in cultural diversity.

Cultural imperialism: imposition of one culture upon another with articulated purposes such as capturing of market by spreading consumerism or reshaping of popular consciousness to establish hegemonic control. ‘Americanization’ is recognized as a kind of cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism can also take the form of neo-colonialism or cultural colonialism.