This final analysis includes an important additional aspect of katakana following the explanation of its usage. Hiragana, katakana, and kanji are the three types of letters used in Japanese Script. Katakana is the simplest of the three with its shorter straighter strokes derived from the more complex kanji and similar in some ways to hiragana. Below are some interesting examples of Katakana that illustrate the main uses of this type of letter in Japanese Script:
1. For use with loan/foreign words whose sounds may not be original Japanese sounds, such as:
country names,foreign places,personal names:
2. For emphasis, since hiragana accounts for all of the phonetic representations of original japanese sounds and is used for particles and many Japanese words, sometimes using katakana is used for emphasis of very important, exciting or interesting things such as:
ｽﾎﾟ -- ｼ!
ﾄﾞﾚﾏ!
ｱﾆﾒ!
Each member of the family shouts in excitement to watch their favorite thing on the new television. Sports! Drama! Anime!
3. For Scientific/Medical Terms. This usage makes sense considering the top two main uses of kanji since these terms may not be composed of original Japanese sounds and are likely to be loan words. Also I would consider scientific and medical terms to be quite important and deserving of emphasis:
ガン = cancer
4. For onomatopoeia, which is defined as a word the imitates or suggests the sound that it describes. It makes sense for katakana to be used in this instance because it falls into the loan word category, as it is the sound being described by the word is not likely an original Japanese sound and onomatopoeias are commonly create emphasis when they are used:
チクタク = tick tock , the noise a clock makes
*****
*****
ワンワン = wan wan, the noise a Japanese dog makes
*****
5. For Unification, sometimes katakana is used to conveniently combine 2 words into one:
ルームミラー = Rear view mirror
6. For shortening, sometimes for convenience katakana is used to shorten a longer word or phrase into a shorter one:
ﾊﾟｿｺﾝ = personal computer
Katakana- open to interpretation:
I feel that the katakana analysis draft on my previous blog post sufficiently illustrates the various uses of katakana with interesting examples, but it is not after having slightly practice with it that I have come to realize how interesting katakana usage can be. I get the feeling that katakana originated solely as a means of expressing sounds and words that are not original to Japanese, but it has evolved into a complex and unique way of expressing words and their meanings. Before we learned Kanji, we would spell words using hiragana because it was all we knew, so whenever you see a word written in katakana you are left to wonder the author's intended meaning and why they chose to express it that way. I really like how katakana leaves some room for thought an inquisition. i have noticed this fact particularly after reading my peers' literary work. The open-endedness and complexity of katakana is one aspect i feel my original analysis was missing.
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