Katakana Analysis

Katakana script is characterized by a variety of features in our collection of textbook excerpts, among them references to its material/visual form, its lexical functions, and its relationships with other scripts of Japanese (hiragana and kanji). The discussions in each of these textbooks divide katakana usage into a basic repertoire of fundamental classes -- foreign names and loan words, representation of sound, and word emphasis -- and thus attempt to position the script and its uses within simply constructed and easily defendable categories. This desire to definitively “pin down” katakana is certainly informed by the intended audiences of these textbooks. Textbook authors most likely assume that students of beginning Japanese have no background in the language, and thus require a straightforward rubric for evaluating the language’s diverse array of scripts. These classifications help to facilitate quick mastery of the language through systematic categorizations that render katakana and its applications easily quantifiable and quickly recognizable.

Perhaps more noteworthy, however, is the way in which these textbooks equate katakana with difference -- their descriptions emphasize that katakana is a vehicle of the “foreign” or unusual (which might signify any of the categories listed above, depending on the situation), and equate its usage with words and occasions that are largely “outside” the realm of “normal” language. Unlike hiragana and kanji, which are both presented as “standard” or “essential” building blocks of Japanese language, katakana is presented as something of an afterthought, or at least as a later addition to this functional lexical core. Its employment is never entirely benign, and is always contingent upon context; the decision to write in katakana is made intentionally and must be justified, while its use also generates overtones of meaning that resonate beyond the bounds of the actual words that it is used to express. 

My search for katakana samples led me to uncover quite a large spectrum of applications for this script. Some of these specimens could be superficially categorized within the “usual” assortment of usages enumerated by the beginning language textbooks evaluated above. On two different Ito En (伊藤園) tea product packages, for instance, katakana words include: ティーバッグ (tea bag), フィルタ (filter), シリーズ (series), and ジャスミン茶 (Jasmine Tea), all of which could be most simply described as transliterations of foreign words. I imagine that there is also something of an advertising incentive for the use of katakana here -- as a vehicle of otherness, using katakana markets these goods as cosmopolitan products intended for a broad, probably international audience. (The same is true for another sample I found on one of my boxes of contact lenses, which recorded katakana words including フォカスデイリーズ (focus dailies) and ソフトコンタクトレンズ (soft contact lenses).) However, in terms of the two tea products, their packages also balance out words in katakana with words in hiragana and kanji, which seems to serve an aesthetic goal as well -- the balance and variety of scripts makes these product packages look more appealing than one dominated by only a single script would appear. In terms of advertisement, then, the usage of katakana is not always based in language. Rather, it serves as a visual/artistic medium that creates an imagined market for the product through implicit references to its cosmopolitan purchasing community, and further helps to generate the product’s market appeal by balancing and complementing the alternate script forms of hiragana and kanji as package ornamentation. 

Similarly, katakana script might also be used not just as a visual medium, but as a representation of emotion and mood. In the Bump of Chicken song entitled 《オンリーロンリーグローリー》(“Only Lonely Glory”) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je-h2Se1nsA), the band’s choice to use a transliterated katakana title might be construed simply as a statement of mainstream “coolness.” Yet, it seems that there is in fact a deeper artistic incentive underlying this decision. Both the music and lyrics to this song (based on a translation that I found here: http://rukirin88.livejournal.com/15401.html) contain an outpouring of emotions, and the song itself serves as an anthem to resiliency. In part, the song is a receptacle of frustrations, and its lyrics give voice to the singer’s displacement; yet, they also reveals his capacity to move beyond his pain, and explore the possibility of transcendence even in the face of adversity. The music itself also embodies an invigorating drive to move forward, and conveys a mood that plays with interpretations of both the singer’s struggles and his desire to surpass them. Using katakana for the title of this song in itself draws attention to its emotional depth, and one might even go so far as to say that the title emphasizes the singer’s tentatively unfamiliar yet anticipatory hope for the future (hence, using katakana to express what is “other” to him). Even further, the phrases “only glory” and “lonely glory” serve as an almost desperate and jarring refrain that punctuates the otherwise hiragana and kanji-dominated lyrics (for the lyrics in Japanese, see: http://www.utamap.com/showkasi.php?surl=B07124). As the phrases that stand out most in this song (at least to my ear), these katakana transliterated phrases both provide a meaning-focused commentary on the atmosphere of the song, and also serve as a point of centering that structures the content of this work for listeners. 

Based on the samples discussed above, it seems that diverse applications of katakana have flooded the domains of Japanese popular culture and advertisement, especially as a visual and artistic generator of meaning outside the scope of a specific set of vocabulary words. However, I was also interested to see how katakana might be used differently outside of these realms; so, I took a look at part of an article in Japanese (included on the reading list for one of my seminars) aimed at a more academic community, Hamashita Takeshi’s “Shûen kara no Ajia shi” 周縁からのアジア史 (Asian history from the margins of Asia). (See: Hamashita Takeshi, “Shûen kara no Ajia shi” (Asian history from the margins of Asia), in Shuen kara no rikishi (University of Tokyo Press, 1994), pp. 1-7).

After going through the first page of this article, I located a number of terms in katakana: アジア (Asia), エネルギ (energy), フロンティア (frontier), and ダイナミズム (dynamism). While I have tried to piece together the themes and implications of this article by linking recognizable kanji with my classmates’ readings of the piece, I don’t pretend to be able to situate my analysis of katakana used on one page of the article within the context of its full argument. However, it seems that, as an article that takes marginal space and border regions as its object, Hamashita might be using these katakana terms not just as passive vocabulary, but also as a way of adding texture and dimension to the border spaces that he analyzes. Three of the four katakana terms on the first page of this article -- エネルギ (energy), フロンティア (frontier), and ダイナミズム (dynamism) -- are all related as terms that illustrate movement and variability. All three can be used either to depict movement (energy underlies and generates movement, while dynamism can be described as a condition of embodied vigorous energy), or to represent an unstable space infused with movement (if one considers a frontier to be a variable space characterized by a tendency toward change/fluctuation). By using katakana to draw attention to a cross-section of the article’s movement-related vocabulary, Hamashita is able to emphasize, as well as conceptually embody, the instability of the frontiers/marginal spaces that he describes. Further, as in the other cases described above, katakana is a visually-jarring vehicle of meaning that causes these vocabulary terms to stand out against a language background otherwise dominated by kanji and hiragana. Even Hamashita’s use of アジア (Asia) might designate a similar choice, and could signify that the concept of “Asia” itself is an unstable and problematic construct, not unlike the border regions that are the subject of the rest of this article. Given that there is also a kanji term for Asia (亜細亜, according to Google translate), writing “Asia” in katakana must have been a deliberate choice. Admittedly, this analysis might go too far or be altered by a more complete reading of these terms within the larger context of the full piece. Nevertheless, as a written script predicated on conveying difference, the unusual, and the foreign, katakana seems perpetually poised to make an impact, first through meanings generated by an author, and then through the re-creation of these meanings upon its reception by an audience.