The first Katakana word I chose to bring in was メモパッド(memopad),which was on a Sanrio character memopad. The second Katakana word was ソフト(soft)from the package of a cookie. Both of these Katakana words were used as loanwords. By expressing these words in Katakana rather than in their Japanese equivalents in Hiragana or Kanji, they were emphasized among the other Hiragana or Kanji characters. Moreover, similar to Korean culture in which using loanwords is often considered modern, the use of Katakana for loanwords gave it a more global sense to it. In fact, conveying a more modern and global feel may have been the exact purpose for such usage because they were afterall customer goods targeted for the young people.
As Katakana usage reasons differ from situation to situation, textbooks have different explanations for Katakana as well. This is not surprising because there are no set rules in using Katakana. Moreover, setting rules for the vast possibility of Katakana usage (infinite number of loan words and onomatopoeia and emphasis by choice of user) is more hard to accept.
5 comments:
JEANさんへ
In my opinion, your analysis is also giving Katakana a sense of marketing. By emphasizing loanwords and imposing a global sense to customers, it creates pretty powerful customer values, especially to young customers. I think メモパッド and ソフト in Katakana not only contain Japanese impression, but they also have Western feeling.
And, I have a similar idea on why different explanation in Katakana. It should be flexible. If not, it would be too limited to express.
ジーンさん、
I agree with your analysis about using more Katakana for the products targeting the younger generation is a phenomenon that's happening. It might be interesting to compare the percentage of Katakana usage for different products targeting different generations. Does the older generation feel more comfortable buying the products without Katakana in its name? Knowing the population distribution in Japan, it will be natural to have more products targeting older generation. It might be an interesting thing to look into.
Great analysis! TA
I think you did a good job analyzing the examples of katakana that you found in your first paragraph. I don’t know what your assignment was, but expanding upon your second paragraph can only help your case. There may not be any set rules for katakana usage, but many categories of katakana usage do exist. You mentioned a couple uses already: emphasis, a modern and/or international feel, loan words, and onomatopoeia. Perhaps you can research and write about even more uses. Regarding your cookie wrapper, you said that the katakana word was easily distinguished from the words written in hiragana and kanji around it. In what other situations might it be useful to have your word/phrase pop (like from far away…)? Katakana is not only easy to see, in comparison with kanji, but is also easier to write. What kind of people benefit from writing such words as kumazemi (cicada), sakura, and yuri (lily) in katakana rather than in their hiragana or kanji equivalent? These are just a couple more uses to think about. You’re doing a great job. Keep up the good work.
JEANあん、
I agree with ur point of few regarding the use of katakana for emphasis and modernity. I have also assessed the same criterias of Katakana in my analysis.
It seems that your analysis is directed more towards product marketting - a certain type of appeal to a young and trendy crowd. Although I agree with you, I think you can still look more into that aspect of marketting - perhaps on the western market?
Overall this is great!
Good job~
As the precedent comments state, recognizing katakanas as a marketing vector is definitely spot-on. Being certainly correlated to some kind of trendy effect, katakana, being the main solution for foreign words, can also be seen as some kind of mark of openness of the Japanese people towards the rest of the world. That fact could easily be defended by the increasing presence of western culture elements in Japan.
I'm sure digging around that subject could yield most interesting results :D
Finally, allow me to further emphasize my earlier statement: good job~ XD
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