「がんばれ東北！ガンバレ函館！頑張れ日本！」
The banner was put up in order to support the victims of the earthquake, and this campaign had been conducted around many places in hakodate area such as train station and wakoビル(see the links)
In this katakana sample, ｶﾞﾝﾊﾞﾚ was used as an emphasis. As the banner's goal is to support the victims, the phrase "cheer up!" was written in all three forms (hiragana, kanji, and katakana) to give more impression and emphasis.
富良野美瑛 ノロッコ 号
The train connects Biei and Furano, center spots of Hukkaido island. ”ノロッコ” は a combination word of のろい (very slow) and トロッコ (an observation car). Since this train has a purpose of enjoying a scenery and fresh air of Hokkaido, as the word is meant to be, ”ノロッコ” must be used as an emphasis.
It is very interestingly written since ノ looks like an alphabet letter "J" and ロ looks like "O" - it almost looks like an English word.
Even a Japanese person said
"各車両のサイドにはシンボルマーク
カタカナでノロッコをデザインして有りますが、
外人には解読不可能でしょう。
私も一瞬考えました。" on his blog that it also took a moment for him to figure out the symbol/word.
While its roundish shape contradicts with sharp and straight lines of common katakana words, ”ノロッコ” might be written in such manners to symbolize and emphasize its meaning of "slow observation car".
I guess this is the comment section. Why is it in Korean? Whatevs...
답글삭제I really loved your example regarding the earthquake banner. It does make me wonder, however, at what age people learn all of these different writing systems. I wonder why the same phrase would be repeated three times in three different systems... but I think your assumption is correct.
Your train example was interesting as well.
It's interesting to see how you can distort katakana characters and yet still have them be readable. I guess this holds true in English but we don't notice it cause we are used to it. However, you lose readability for children/foreigners in this way, I think...
답글삭제The train example is really interesting to me. You did a great job of tracing the etymology. I guess by your analysis, this would be katakana used to stylize and create portmanteau. Would katakana always be used in this instance? I wonder.
답글삭제I agree with Sofie's comment. I like the example of the loopy script katakana because it's so strange looking but still correct script. Your explanations are good and as Austin notes above, you definitely did your research with the train and banner story. Nice job!
답글삭제Both of these are really interesting examples! I wonder if the effect of repeating the phrase three times in different scripts is mostly for the visual effect. Maybe in English the equivalent might be cursive and italics, which Japanese doesn't have.
답글삭제The ノロッコ sample is very interesting. The cartoonish writing does look like English at the first sight. Also, the way they put two words together like that is really interesting and smart.
답글삭제I liked how you mentioned how the word ノロッコ looks like some English letters, such as the ノ looks like a "J" and, and ロ looks like the letter "o". I, as a Japanese, thought for a minute what was written on that sign. I think it will be especially difficult for small children as well. The characters are designed in a cartoon-ish way and emphasizes the word, but I wonder if it's a good idea to change the shapes of such character too much. Why not use hiragana instead, since のろっこ has more curvy shapes??
답글삭제Something to think about...
TA かわばた