ザケンナヨ
I found this Katakana expression in a Japanese cartoon series about a restaurant that opens from 12 A.M. to 7 A.M. It was used by a yakuza member who was yelling at the restaurant owner. I was told that "ザケンナヨ" is a negative slang term meaning something along the lines of "Don't fool around!", thus I categorized the expression under slang. Although "ザケンナヨ" is a Japanese term and not trying to imitate a foreign word, it is still written in Katakana. Upon research I found that many Japanese slang terms are also expressed in Katakana. For example, キモイ is a Japanese slang term for cool. Perhaps it is because slang terms are relatively new Japanese expressions, they are expressed in Katakana.
キレイ
I was surprised to find that きれいな has a Katakana equivalent. Melissa from my Japanese class brought in clippings of a Japanese cartoon where they described the character who is made of bread as キレイパン. I learned that the word for beauty is commonly expressed in Katakana to draw attention. きれいな was expressed in Katakana to establish emphasis. Apparently, Katakana for beauty is frequently used by women's magazines for emphasis with sayings like ”メイビリンガキレイのヒモツ”.
As for textbooks, I found that their explanations for Katana usage were overall consistent with one another. They focused mainly on loan words, onomatopoeia and emphasis. I would imagine that they focused on these three categories because they are the main reasons for Katakana usage in Japanese. However, through collecting Katakana phrases, I learned there were more complex motives for Katakana use. One T.A. explained to me that sometimes Katakana is used because it is trendier, or more "fashionable," to express something in English. I also found that relatively new Japanese terms were expressed in Katakana instead of being written in hiragana and/or given a Japanese equivalent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)