Katakana expressions:
1) Onomatopoeic: expressing natural sound
ワンワン(Bow wow) http://www.nhk-character.com/chara/inaiinai/zinbutu.html
ピンポン（ding-dong) Not only does this represent sound, it also represents PingPong. There is also a Japanese movie about PingPong.
http://ameblo.jp/robbie31/entry-10280746058.html
http://www.pingpong-movie.com/
2)Foreign Loan Word:
コーヒー（coffee）http://www.tonya.co.jp/shop/c/c0/
It is interesting that how japanese use this loan word, as on the same website we can also find 珈琲, which is the Kanji Version of the word "Coffee". I guess katakana represents the coffee in general, while Kanji represents the particular type/brand of the coffee.
3)Species: (animal, plant,etc)
ネコ（cat）http://gigazine.net/news/20081114__sign_cat_kill_you/
イヌ（dog）http://www.petoffice.co.jp/zukan/dog.htm
I never see cat and dog written in hiragana anywhere, apart from our text book.
4)Emphasize
イマ(Now) http://www.ima-gr.co.jp/
ニポン(Japan) http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/不思議の国のニポン
It is nice to have samples from the four categories, but I think it would be more interesting if you analyze one or two categories of words more in detail. Also, it would be nice if you post the snapshots of the websites, not only just the URLs. About ネコ and イヌ I've seen the hiragana version of them all over the places. Try to find the examples and think why they are used in hiragana, katakana, or kanji. Also, try to explain more why イマ and ニッポン is used in katakana in those contexts.
ReplyDeleteGood examples. For your example of coffee, I rarely see [珈琲] and for a moment wondered if that was a Chinese example. Its almost the opposite of Toyota! Why do you think the store chose to write the word in kanji when it is typically written in katakana? For #3, I agree with Mizoguchi-san, 犬 and 猫 are written everywhere in hiragana and kanji so they would be emphasis examples. Why do you think it was written in katakana? In the last case, it isn't only written in katakana, but its been shortened from ニッポン → ニポン. I wonder if the contestants in the show have to hit something twice? - すぎもと
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