Katakana Analysis Draft

The first katakana word that I found were ミッキー＆ミニー (Mickey and Mini). I found it on the website (Medicom Toy Store) where I go shopping for the Japanese toys. The words, Mitki and Mini were used to write loan words. I assumed that the reason for using katakana instead of Hiragana is because foreign loanwords give an impression of sophistication and modernity. Also it has intention to be pronounced as the original. Presumably, Japanese wanted to distinguish between the Japanese word and foreign language by using katakana. In order words, katakana enabled us to guess that a certain word is from foreign country.

The word アカスリ, pronounced Akasuri, is written in katakana but does not come from foreign country. I found it in K-town when I was on my way home. It has meaning of Body Scrubs. It was used to emphasize the word like mirroring the European usage of bold, italic or upper case text. Also it could be written as 垢擦り or in hiragana, あかすり.  Katakana were used because personally, あかすり looks too lightweight, given that hiragana are mostly used for grammatical particles or verb endings. In an effort to stress that Akasuri is a fully-fledged word, katakana has been used instead. Moreover, another reason could be 垢擦り is considered difficult-to-read kanji. Therefore, the usage of katakana was appropriate.