Katakana Analysis Draft

While studying numerous examples of katakana these past few days, I realized that the usage of katakana can convey many different messages and meanings. I especially found it very interesting to see how hiragana and katakana were often switched around, in order to evoke a certain idea. For example, in this picture above of An-Pan Man and friends from a Japanese website, An-Pan Man is spelled in all katakana. While “pan” and “man” are English loanwords, “an” which is an abbreviation of “anko” or red bean paste, is a word of Japanese origin. Therefore, I found it interesting that the entire name “An-pan Man” uses all katakana, instead of using hiragana for “An” and katakana for the rest. I think that katakana was used in order to emphasize the entire name, and make the character’s name cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. Using hiragana, then katakana in his name would break up the pattern of having an ン　every other letter. Thus, using katakana makes An-Pan Man’s name look like a pattern. Using katakana also makes the name look “cool” and reflects An pan Man’s strength as a superhero cartoon.  Also in the picture, the word “homepage” is spelled in a mixed alphabet of hiragana and katakana; the letters are in hiragana, but the dashes are used for katakana. I thought this was especially strange. I think that hiragana was used because it looks cute,  reflecting the overall cute image of this cartoon and the characters surrounding. I think that the dashes were used to make this image a bit more stream-lined and clean to look at, since there is a lot going on in this picture, with lots of color, cartoon images, and writing. 

I also found this package for Japanese peach flavored gummies to be interesting. I grew up eating these little heart shaped gummies (which are really yummy, by the way), but never thought about the packaging before. However, as I studied it,  I realized that it was weird that they wrote the word “peach” as a loan word in katakana; since there is a Japanese word for peach (もも) I thought it was strange that the company decided to write ピーチ　instead of もも. I think that they used katakana for peach, instead of the traditional Japanese word, in order to make the writing cohesive; gummy is spelled in katakana, so peach is spelled in katakana to match the style as well. Also, unlike traditional Japanese candy, like kintaro ame, these gummies are a more Western-style candy; thus, the western word for peach is used. Also, katakana could be used to emphasize the flavor of the candy.

The textbooks are all a little different in explaining katakana because there are so many ways to use katakana that don’t have distinct guidelines. However, all the textbooks noted the main ways to use katakana, including loan or foreign words, since that is the most common way to use katakana.