 |
| Sign that says "McDonald hamburger" in かたかな |
In this sign, かたかな is used to write the loan words, "McDonalds" and "hamburger."
 |
| A menu that has "Dessert" and its list of desserts written in かたかな |
Again, the かたかな words used here represent loan words.
 |
| A ドラえもん comic strip that uses かたかな for sound effects |
The かたかな words here are " ごくり ," which represents a gulping sound; and " ポイ ," which represents the sound of someone carelessly throwing something. These かたかな words are onomatopoeic.
 |
| A children's book with かたかな in its title |
This is the cover of an アンパンマン storybook. アンパンマン is a ゆうめい anime hero in children's stories. His name comprises three parts: "あん," which means "red bean paste"; "パン," the Portuguese loaned word for "bread"; and finally "マン," the English loaned word for "man". Basically... he's a man whose head is made of bread with red bean paste inside (アンパンマンをたべます! Hehe, jk =P). Even though "あん" is a regular Japanese word that's usually written in ひらがな, it's probably written in かたかな here because the rest of アンパンマン's name is in かたかな, and this keeps things consistent. This also makes アンパンマン seem more like a superhero, since other famous heroes names' are usually written in かたかな (i.e スーパーマン = superman). "マーチ" is the loan word equivalent of "March," but I suspect the "マーチ" here is actually the ひらがな "まち," as in, "town." If so, this would be a regular Japanese word written in かたかな for emphasis.
 |
| A ドラえもん scene with the words "rubber ball" in かたかな |
This is super かわいいです！ドラえもん has hands which look like rubber balls, and his ともだち, のび太さん, always takes advantage of this when the two play "rock, paper, scissors". Because of ドラえもん's rubber-ball hands, he invariably seems to put up "rock". そうして のび太さん always puts up "paper" - we know who wins XD. ドラえもん frantically tries to explain that "rock, paper, scissors" just isn't a cool game for someone with rubber-ball hands. In this case, "rubber ball" is written in かたかな for emphasis.
From these examples, I learned that かたかな is generally used to write loan words, onomatopoeic words, or emphasized words. Nevertheless, each textbook explains かたかな usage differently. This is probably because loan words, onomatopoeic words, and emphasized words can appear in myriads of situations. For instance, a loan word may appear in a sign, on a book cover, or as a brand name. Onomatopoeic words can express naturally occurring sounds (eg, moo, meow, tick tock, etc.) or a manner (eg. squiggly). Moreover, all sorts of words can be emphasized. Because かたかな is used to cover so many different type of words, it would seem cursory for a textbook to simply divide its usage into "loan words, onomatopoeic words, and emphasized words."
An example where these three categories alone would not suffice is with many Japanese company names. These are generally written in かたかな, but may not consist of loan words or onomatopoeic words. Of course, we can say that a company wants to emphasize its name... but how can we know for sure that this かたかな usage is an emphasis? As far as I can tell, we can't. As a result, textbooks try to account for these subtleties to the best of their writers' abilities, and the end product is varying explanations of かたかな usage.
Fascinating, no? Now if only I can figure out the fool-proof way of figuring all this out... ^^"
とてもおもしろかったですね。It is definitely true that only those 3 categories do not suffice to describe the myriad of ways in which かたかな is used! Certainly the word "emphasis" is pretty vague. Often times in Japan かたかな seems to be used to make something seem more modern (this perhaps could be part of the feeling that one gets when reading a company's name in katakana) or more cool/trendy.
ReplyDeletep.s. Love the アンパンマン example. :)
四年生のケイト
いいブログですね！ぼくも ドラえもんが すきです！
ReplyDeleteI never realized that the an in Anpanman wouldn't be classified as a loan word...Doraemon actually uses ひあらがな and かたかな in his name huh...
I'll tell you here and now, there's no fool proof way to figure it out! And that's probably for the better since it keeps things interesting :D
While the three conventional uses for かたかなthat you point out are useful there's a lot of situations they don't cover. Like Kate said, I think かたかな adds a modern "cool" kind of feel to a word. Also かたかな can be used to catch people's attention in advertisements, since it will stand out from the kanji.
Some people will write diaries or notes in katakana too, sometimes because they like the look better or because they learned that script first and it feels more natural.
By the way, if you like Doraemon you should come to the Columbia Anime Club if you don't already!
よろしく
四年生のフリオ
I really like your analysis, it reminds me how I learned Japanese 2 years ago - gather examples and draw my own conclusions, because the textbooks usually don't explain everything we want to know - no blame though, it's always hard to conclude specific rules about a language. So it comes with feelings and experiences. Except for the 3 categories you stated above, I also think there is another reason for people to use katakana - when the kanjis are too hard to write. For example, when I went to the doctors in Japan, basically 50% of the words in the prescription are in katakana - even those words that has corresponding kanjis. That way it's fool-proof, so that non educated people could also understand. Just like Kate and Julio said, there's a trend in Japanese language - sometimes the kanjis are too complicated so they write hirakanas instead, and sometimes the hirakanas are not cool enough so they write katakana to make it cooler. Like the word "beautiful": 綺麗ー＞きれいー＞キレイ, and it is the last one which appears all over Japanese magazines.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Thanks for letting me know that パン is Portuguese... I was always wondering why a "cooking pan" could be adopted to mean bread *^_^*
Wow your blog is so colorful. とても おもしろい
ReplyDeleteですね。
It is very impressive that you found so many evidence to support your analysis of Katakana.
Yeah, I'd like to add to Ziyi's comment. I heard that politicians were the but of jokes for not knowing kanji. Given that politicians are likely to be relatively well educated, I am not surprised that this would extend to "regular people". What is a bit surprising is the use of katakana to write out kanji, as far as my *small* experience has been, the standard is to write kanji in furigana which is hiragana.
ReplyDelete