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| 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."
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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... ^^"
