Nicholas Frankel
10/10/12
Katakana Analysis Draft
For my katakana words I’ve chosen the onomonopiac word “ピンポン”, translated to “ping pong”,
which is the word that Japanese people use to describe the sound of a door
bell. In the United States, the sound we typically equate to a doorbell is
“Ding Dong”. It’s not dissimilar to the Japanese equivalent; I find it
interesting that we pick up on different emphasis. Obviously the purpose behind
this word being written in katakana as oppose to hiragana or kanji is that it
is a word for sound, which is one of the primary uses for katakana along with
assimilating loan words.
As
I have mentioned in previous posts, I’m a pretty big fan of Japanese cinema,
and especially of anime. I used to subscribe to anime magazines such as Otaku,
and read
the stories
about upcoming anime television and movie events. Often times, katakana would
be employed on the magazine cover and within the magazine for what I imagine
was pop emphasis. As stated in ようこそ,
Japanese people, especially young urbanites, believe foreign loanwords have a
certain element of sophistication and modernity to them. Often they would substitute
native Japanese words for use of these loan words.
So for instance, in magna I've encountered the word "だめ" written as "
ダメ".Why would they do this? There are several reasons why the writer might use katakana instead of hiragana. Firstly, to use visual or only slight semantic emphasis, almost like using bold or italics in english. Second, to describe onomonopea. And lastly, its possible that the word is normally written in kanji and the writer was trying to save time by using katakana. Most likely, the first reason is the correct one. Katakana was developed out of necessity and convenience. Subsequently, it is very prevalent in japanese media and pop culture not only for its convenience but also for its aesthetic appeal to young audiences. 
I like your primary focus on the role of katakana in emphasis, particularly in specific choice words and in onomatopoeia. It's fun to see the ways each language interprets different onomatopoeic sounds. Maybe you could mention the fact that in the same way Japanese writers use katakana, in English, italics or quotations are used to mark onomatopoeia.
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about modernization as a factor in katakana use. I like how you point out that writing in katakana native Japanese words (that are usually written in hiragana/kanji) has been getting popular, due to the "modern" appeal to it. I would also point out a similar trend where foreign loanwords, being really assimilated in everyday Japanese language, are used in place of native Japanese equivalent words. For example, consider the words for ticket, チケット vs きっぷ.
ReplyDeleteI have heard of katakana being used for emphasis, but I never considered it used visually, the way we use font weight or style for emphasizing English words, and it makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. It is definitely interesting to find out what onomatopoeic words sound normal in other languages. In my personal experience I have found Japanese words for sound effects really odd, even I though the ones that I find natural, say, ones that are found in Western comics (like BOOM and BAM), should equally be as odd.
I have read this several times from different sources now, so I can con firm that your latter analysis regarding the use of katakana ダメ is correct. because the font system in Japanese is not as extensive as in English, it lacks the ability to differentiate by using italics or bold. Therefore, the people turn to katakana for differentiation and emphasis. It took me a long time understand why katakana is used for emphasis, because I thought it looks quite similar to hiragana and if anything, Kanji should be used for emphasis because it's so different. But now I think I understand why katakana is used for emphasis.
ReplyDelete日本語の"D"の音は英語の"D"の音じゃありません。
ReplyDeleteA lot of times when people think about katakana sounds it seems that the romaji transcription of a sound from Japanese into English is how a guess towards what a loan word might be in Japanese is determined. "だ" sounds like "da," but it isn't exactly the same, so sometimes things might not "line up." Besides that, "ピンポン" uses natural Japanese sounds, as "di" isn't one of them.
It is cool your class got to do this.