Above is an example of a Japanese advertisement for the American Product, "Vitamin Water," taken from their Japanese website. Although Vitamin Water is a loan word, roman characters are used, perhaps to maintain the familiar brand label. However, at the top of the screen, we see that the company calls regular water "ツマラナイ," or "boring." Because this is a Japanese origin word, we would expect to see that Hiragana is used; however, Katakana is used in its stead.
The fourth textbook example explains, briefly, that Katakana may be used for, "words the writer wishes to emphasize." This is supported by http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/katakana-uses.html, which states explicitly that Katakana is used to emphasize important words, similar to the use of Italics in the English language.
These explanations make sense in context of the above advertisement. Because the company wishes to emphasize that regular water is inferior to their product, they will use text that reflects that emphasis. Imagine that the English website claimed that regular water is boring; you might expect their site to display the text: "Regular water is Boring," to represent the emphatic sound someone might place on the word boring when speaking it. The use of Katakana in writing ツマラナイ has the same effect, which is intended to convince the reader that they shouldn't drink regular water as opposed to vitamin water; in this case, Katakana is used as a marketing tactic.
The following image is taken from: http://www.takaratomy-arts.co.jp/specials/clockman/
In this example, we find two repeated Katakana words that appear to be coming from the alarm clock. These appear to represent sounds that the clock will make when the alarm sounds.
The second textbook example claims that Katakana may be used to represent sounds or "Onomatopoeic words." Another textbook called Let's Learn Katakana devotes an entire section to onomatopoeic Katakana words, and claims that setting these words apart from others gives them a distinct character apart from nouns, adjectives, etc..
This advertisement uses Katakana to lend the onomatopoeia a fun or playful sense to go along with the theme of the alarm clock. By replacing Hiragana with Katakana, the advertiser draws the reader into the fun and attractive sounds that the alarm clock makes, and making him/her want to buy the product.
In both of these examples, we find that advertisers use Katakana to their advantage; by using this text, they put emphasis or change the feeling of the words in a way that expresses something that usually would be expressed with tone or word order. Clearly, Katakana can be used not only for loan-words but to indicate a variety of spoken nuances.
Two of the four textbook examples (2 and 4) note that Katakana can be used for onomatopoeia, and only one notes that it can be used for emphasis (example 4). Perhaps because the most common use of Katakana is for foreign words, the textbooks wanted to focus on the most common interpretation and ignored the others.
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That clock is very かわいい。。。[how did you find it?]
ReplyDeleteActually it seems the キョロキョロ is not so much a sound onomatopoeia, this is the definition in wwwjdic:
きょろきょろ(P); きょときょと (adv,n,vs) (on-mim) look around restlessly
Although the definition actually lists the phrase in hiragana! The mystery of Japanese only grows...
But I definitely agree that advertisers use katakana in all sorts of ways to make people buy things!
PS I noticed you were looking for a free speaking partner before. I'm always available!, because my Japanese needs a lot of practice, heh.
ほんとうに、この時計はかわいいですね。
ReplyDeleteところで、What is the benefit for learners when the textbooks focus on the most common interpretation of katakana and ignore the others?
I like how you connected the use of katakana to italics in English as a device for emphasizing a certain word, which helps people understand the concepts, instead of going 'jeez, so many things that don't make sense!'
ReplyDeleteバネッサ
Your examples are very interesting! I wonder if maybe there is more complexity to the use of katakana than simply emphasis. As we see in the second advertisement (the clock), it seems that font choice, font size and color can also be used to emphasize a word or expression – so I wonder if there are reasons for choosing katakana for emphasis rather than these more "common" ways. Or is katakana more "common" in Japanese?
ReplyDeleteFor example, I thought that the fact that Vitamin Water is not a Japanese product might have to do with the decision to use katakana – maybe they wanted to emphasize its foreignness? They did use a LOT of katakana and roman characters in that website. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
I like your examples on emphasizing the word by using katakana as a marketing trick. I think in a sense Japanese has more freedom than English because it is not limited to using different font style/size/color to emphasize things, but can also use different script altogether!
ReplyDeleteHullo,
ReplyDeleteI like the point above about Japanese allowing more freedom of graphic design through the use of the mix of katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Maybe katakana is the Helvetica to hiragana's Futura? I wonder if in your vitamin water example, つまらない becomes ツマラナイ in a way that is somehow mimetic of how you're meant to say it - B-O-R-I-N-G! Because it's in an unusual script you have to sound it out, which is, I suppose, a subcategory of "emphasis."
I'd like to know which system children learn first, and whether use of any other of the systems over the others has the connotation of childhood. The friendly onomatopoeic katakana noises of the alarm clock might have some deeper nostalgic aim, maybe.
Using katakana to highlight a word is not something I've thought about before, but makes absolute sense. I find it interesting how there can be many ways to highlight つまらない: one could have it in a different colour, or a larger font, or underline it, but none as subtle or in my opinion effective as using katakana.
ReplyDeleteそのかわいい時計がほしい！
L
ありがとうございます to all those who left コメント！
ReplyDeleteYour feedback was very thoughtful and every comment helped me revise my draft and understand カタカナ on a deeper level!
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