Tuesday, March 5, 2013

カタカナ Analysis (Revised)


こんばんは、みなさん!

どうもありがとうfor your outstanding comments on my カタカナ Analysis. I had some very interesting feedback, so I'm adding some of new ideas.

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

Katakana (カタカナ)is a type of character in Japanese language generally used to represent foreign words and onomatopoeia. Also, katakana is a way to emphasize a word or a sentence. However, analyzing some katakana on mangas, I realized it can be used to convey few more information. 

Let's see some examples:



As you can see in that example from Dragon Ball manga, the word  ぼく(僕)is written in katakana (ボク).  In my opinion, ぼく is written in katakana in order to express a fragility/ naivety/ verdancy of the character, who is a child. In that case, katakana is also used to express character's throughts from his manner to "speak". It sounds as a student who just starts learning Japanese and want to introduce himself/herself. ワタシハ。。。デス。ドウゾヨロシクオネガイシマス。Instead of わたしは。。。です。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

Let's see another example.
In that example the name りょうこ, which is clearly a Japanese name and not a foreign name, is written in katakana. It may have been written in katakana to inform to the readers that  リョウコ is  not a real name of the manga author. It's a pseudonym. Also it may be an attempt to turn a Japanese name in something different as a foreign name.

Also, foreign words are commonly used instead of Japanese words. Perhaps for a cultural or marketing perspective. One good example is the word キス (kiss) instead of せっぷん (kiss in Japanese). Is it cooler? 



Some more examples:


We have here two different words. One is バカボン. This word doesn't exist on a Japanese dictionary (at least I couldn't find it), but everyone in Japan knows the meaning (according to my Japanese friends). It's something like " very silly". Katakana was used, in this case, to express a "new" word, a neologism.

The other word is quite simple はりっけ, which means to crucifix. Katakana is used to emphasize this meaning. 

The last example:


Katakana can also be used to visually "stand out" among kanji or hiragana. As we can see on this poster of the famous movie 踊る大捜査線. Katakana and English words are highlighted to our reading. 

No comments:

Post a Comment