Sunday, September 29, 2013

Katakana Examples

Example 1: "Cool Factor"?
When "Tokyo Three Hawks Motor Club" is credited in this movie, their name is written in katakana (except "Tokyo" of course).  I think there are non-loan words in Japanese for everything in the name of the organization, so it must be a deliberate choice to use katakana/loan words and have a "western-sounding" name.  Since it's a motorsports club, it may be modeling itself after American motorcycle organizations and trying to call that connection to mind with its name.

Example 2: Personal Choice
The name of the singer is written in katakana in the title of this album.  As in the example we discussed in class, it's likely that this is just designed to make her name stand out or look interesting.  She is related to another singer who writes her name in the same way, カルメン・マキ, via a connection to notable avant-garde figure Shuji Terayama.  I think it's just a coincidence though, not that he was exclusively seeking to promote singers who spelled their name マキ.

3 comments:

  1. As you said katakana sometimes is used for making it look interesting, that is totally true. Especially, many talents use katakana for their stage name or some people use katakana for something they want to stand out. It is interesting though that is one of the ways to use katakana for. Here is example,
    キセキ it is a title of CD album and we usually use Kanji for this word but this artist didn’t use. take care.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the response! It's interesting how people can choose between different ways of writing, it's hard to think of a close equivalent in English.

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    2. Yes, I bet , In Japanese, it’s quite common to choose between different ways of writing but English has no choice cause it has a only way to express in writing. In my opinion, it’s way easier to use in the only way like English. On the other hand, sometimes I got messed up with Japanese because they’ve got tons ways to use even though I’ve grown up with Japanese,,,,,hahaha
      What do you think ?? you wanna more interesting ways than useful ones ??
      Take care

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