Katakana Analysis Final Draft

My first katakana word is ポッキ (Pocky). Pocky is the very famous asian snack that consists of a biscuit stick that is coated with chocolate or strawberry. Pocky originated in Japan, and its name is an onomatopoeia of the sound it makes when you bite into it (the snapping of the Pocky stick). For this reason, expressing the word in katakana would make the most sense since one of the uses of the writing system is to represent onomatopoetic sounds. Nowadays, however, the brand is usually written with the English alphabet version of the word (Pocky) instead of the original katakana version (ポッキ). This was probably done because English words stand out much more as a brand than a word written in any of the three Japanese alphabets.

My second katakana word is ロイヤルミルクテ (Royal Milk Tea). This is a Japanese brand of milk tea drink. Using katakana to represent the name of the drink in this way might seem like these are loan words. However, milk and tea both have native words in Japanese that are not loan words from English (ぎゅうにゅう and ちゃ). Using the phonetic representation of these words in katakana shows that it was probably used as emphasis. Katakana are more noticeable than hiragana as brands (because of their blockiness) and also shows sophistication when representing western words.

The Katakana writing system's effect of providing emphasis to the word is probably due to the physical characteristics of the Katakana alphabet.  Its edginess appears very unnatural because things found in nature (rivers, mountains, etc) are usually rounded and not as jagged.  Katakana's edginess and sharp corners would stand out in a pool of curvy Hiragana words.  It is the same way capitalized letters in English provide more emphasis than lower case letters.  They contain more corners so they bring the reader's attention to them.

Different textbooks sometimes have different explanations for the use of katakana. I think the discreprency comes from the changes in the uses of katakana over time. Unlike hiragana and kanji, katakana is used as the writing system for words that do not fit in the uses of the other two systems. For this reason, katakana can have different purposes as new uses are invented. In my opinion, katakana is the most flexible of the three writing systems because writers can effectively use it however they see fit.

-Simon