Thinking back to the day of the first lecture of Japanese class I remember the feelings of concern and anxiety that flooded me as さとう先生 briefly described the seemingly endless amount of complex linguistic elements. I took solace in knowing that at least katakana seemed more or less simple and graspable. However, I'm realizing more and more that the question of when to use katakana is perhaps one of the most nuanced characteristics of the language! Various textbooks explain katakana as generally falling into three categories: (1) onomatopoeia (2) loan words (3) emphasis. There is never a quite concrete clarification of the exact rules that govern the last, perhaps most complicated, category. In fact, it seems to often be omitted. The reason that this might be is that it is perhaps too complicated to explain what "emphasis" might mean. It's highly culturally as well as situationally specific. Therefore, so try to explain to beginning students of Japanese what they mean by that might even be COUNTER-productive in that it gives students a false-sense of knowledge of when to use katakana for emphasis. The best and perhaps only way to really learn of when to use katakana for emphasis as well as in general is through exposure to Japanese culture.The inclusion of katakana in literature and culture in general is very interesting and is something I'm coming to grips with gradually. There seem to be a lot of cultural factors at play that I am not in a position to judge or even fully perceive that govern its use. In any case, it's certainly fascinating. I agree with ウィルソンさん's suggestion that the best way to make the choice more natural and to understand the underlying reasoning is continual exposure to Japanese culture.
The three katakana words that If found that I want to discuss in this analysis are ラブラブ、ショップ、and シェフ。I found ラブラブ on Utada Hikaru's twitter feed (http://twitter.com/utadahikaru). she was discussing being at a hotel with her boyfriend, and I suppose she wanted to emphasize her delight! It's quite obviously a take off of the word "love" in English so in that sense it's a loan word, but it's also used in this case for emphasis. It seems to be a "cute" way to express sentimentality, and the "doubling" of ラブ further emphasizes the intended preciousness. I found the word ショップ on a website called Style-arena.jp. The specific entry (http://www.style-arena.jp/street/individual/dt/4329?langType=ja) I'm referring to was referring to the "Tokyo Street Style" look of a 20 year old man whose nickname isまーくん. The website lists different elements of everyone's look. When referring to his favorite store they used the katakana word ショップ. It's definitely a loan word from English. I suppose that they chose to use katakana in this case because it's a fashion web-site, and English/Western loan words have a some-what trendy, fashionable connotation. Emphasizing the foreign-ness/alterity of a good is often a successful marketing/branding strategy (and certainly not one that is exclusive to Japan). Michael Bailey pointed out that this phenomenon is present in the US in the ubiquity of "pâtisseries" and "bistros." I found the word シェフ on the website of Pierre Hermé Japan, a very popular French Macaron Bakery that has several locations in Japan. In the "history" section (http://www.pierreherme.co.jp/history/) that explains where Pierre Hermé comes from they use the word シェフ to refer to Pierre Hermé rather than a Japanese term. I found this extremely interested, especially because Japan has such a globally respected culinary tradition. Why would they use a loan word from French to refer to a chef? I suppose it has to do with the fact that France perhaps has a somewhat respectable reputation and using the word in katakana might be more appealing to Japanese consumers. Michael Bailey pointed out that it could also have been used due to it being considered somewhat of a proper noun– connected linguistically to Pierre Hermé himself.
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