Suter and Murakami - Katakana

        In Rebecca Suter's The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan and the United States, she brings up many interesting points about Murakami's use of language, particularly in terms of how he uses katakana in his stories. Something that I found interesting and did not know about previously was the way that katakana is perceived by the Japanese. Since katakana is a means of bringing foreign words into the Japanese language, I guess it should not be too surprising that its use brings certain connotations with it. To be specific, using a katakana word--especially if it already has a close equivalent in Japanese--conveys a "sense of cosmopolitanism and prestige" that using a regular Japanese word would not. For example, regarding their profession, in certain positions, people can choose to refer to themselves as the original Japanese title or the katakana title. If someone is a journalist, they can choose between being called a ジャーナリスト and a 新聞記者, or if they are a photographer, they choose between フォトグラファー and 写真家. By choosing to call themselves by the katakana title, these people want their occupations to seem more attractive by implying their "modern and sophisticated lifestyle." 

        I also thought that it was interesting how Murakami "parodies the use of katakana words typical of advertising in the 1980s" in some of his works. In one example, he does this by repeating commercial-like phrases, all involving the word "unity," and using an abundance of katakana words--such as "dezain (design), baransu (balance), konseputo (concept), shiriizu (series), and shinpurusa (simpleness)." A character also mentions that the word, kicchin (kitchen), is preferable to daitokoro in the context of advertising because it implies a more spacious, modern kind of kitchen. After reading this example, I realized that I have seen this kind of katakana advertisement parody in Yoshimoto Banana's works, as well. One of her works is titled キッチン in katakana when the original Japanese word, 台所, exists and is even written in the first line. This may be a decision based on the connotation of kicchin being a modern, spacious kitchen. There is also a line later in this book that talks about a German vegetable peeler and how it's "a peeler so great that even the laziest of grandmothers will have a blast peel, peel, peeling away." This specific commercial-sounding phrase does not contain katakana in itself (besides the ドイツ part), but it is surrounded by a list of other kitchen appliances written in katakana, which infuses this same kind of ad-like tone and makes it stick out in the text as "foreign."

-Melody