A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Usage of Katakana-Go in Contemporary Japanese

Abstract

In recent times, researchers have observed an increase in the use of “gairai-go”, also known as foreign loan words, in Japanese daily speech. While there have been extensive amounts of data collected to prove the change in use of these foreign words, very little research has been put into the broader spectrum of “katakana-go”, the overarching subcategory of Japanese that consists of smaller categories such as foreign loan words, onomatopoeias, words being written in a form of emphasis, and as a method to make more complex Japanese words easier to read or abbreviate. The following research analyzes the larger category of katakana-go and its change in frequency and method of usage across multiple generations. Studies consisted of blog analysis, surveying the Japanese populace, and comparing results to former researcher’s data. Results showed increases and decreases in usage as well as some shifts towards a replacement with hiragana.