カタカナ分析 (Katakana Analysis)

First of all, I would like to introduce the two katakana words I choose to analyze.

The first one is a translation line from an interview video of the Harry Potter cast from www.youtube.com.  The line appears at 0:29 second on the top of the screen.  It reads "ドモアリガチ　サヨナラ".

The second katakana word I choose is an onomatopoeia word "ゴロゴロ".  It was introduced to us by Sato sensei in class so I don't have a definite source for this word.

The reason why I choose the first translation katakana is because of its interesting usage in the video.  We all know that there are hiragana words for "Thank You" and "Goodbye".  Those are the very first words we learn in class.  However, the Japanese TV producers deliberately chose to use katakana to translate what is said by the Harry Potter cast instead of using hiragana.  By doing so, it emphasized their foreign accent.  I think maybe in a way, the katakana translation made the video even more appealing to the audiences.  I think this is a perfect example for how flexible katakana can be used in different situations to emphasize different meanings.

The reason why I choose my second katakana word to be an onomatopoeia word is simply because there are just so many such words in Japanese that it is impossible to avoid them.  (According to Sato sensei, Japanese has the second most onomatopoeia words among all languages.)  In class, we were told that ゴロゴロ is often used to describe "laziness" (maybe it sounds like snoring?).  A simple Google Image search of ゴロゴロ will give you images of cats lying around (and beef too?) - very cute and surely gives the meaning of being lazy (not the beef ones of course).  I think that katakana is used for many onomatopoeia words mainly because of its simple stroke shape and therefore creates a direct visual effect.  Even though onomatopoeia can be written in both hiragana and katakana, I think the latter gives a more visual result.  It just simply stands out more!  For onomatopoeia words that need to "transfer" the feelings directly to the readers, katakana seems to be the one to use.  (However, as a side note, I can't help but agree with one of my readers.  ゴロゴロ also sounds like someone drinking a large amount of liquid fast - like chugging a glass of beer.  So in that sense, doesn't onomatopoeia become very confusing sometimes?  Is he drinking beer or is he lying around being lazy?  =P )

There are many different ways to use katakana.  The most common ones are loan words, onomatopoeia and for emphasis (similar to how italic is used in English).  Wikipedia also points out that katakana can sometimes use to write out words that are very difficult in kanji (as often seen in medical terminology).  Many Japanese textbooks (including the handouts that were given to us in class) explain katakana by introducing its history first.  I personally think that it is really important to learn about the history of a language (or anything we learn as a matter of fact) before anything else.  It is especially true for katakana.  For one thing, it was originally developed as a form of shorthand by Buddhist monks to indicate the correct pronunciations of the original Chinese characters.  Therefore, not only its strokes are more simple than hiragana, they are also less "roundish" (as opposed to hiragana, which was originally used only by women).  So you can see, history can tell us how katakana is developed over the years and become how it is today in modern Japanese.  Another interesting point I find is that all katakana explanations include a comparison chart of katakana and their original Chinese characters.  I am not sure how non-Chinese speaking students would see it.  But I personally find that very helpful in the sense that I can see how each katakana "alphabet" is developed (and to my surprise, a lot has changed from the old Chinese characters).  I think many textbooks choose to include this information because there are such strong influences from Chinese that it is impossible to teach Japanese without mentioning its origin.

References:
1. Japanese Katakana (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_katakana.htm)
2. Katakana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#Usage)