Katakana Analysis Draft

I looked at online newspapers like Asahi (Asashi.com) to find my katakana words, and I was surprised to find that many were "borrowed" from English, such as キャリアアップ、 カタログ、トレーニング, and レッスン. (career, catalogue, training, and lesson). While I understood the concept of borrowed words, I believe that these concepts existed in some indigenous form within Japan prior to contact with English language speakers. Therefore, the usage of these terms is not merely a question of using the foreign alphabet to represent foreign ideas.

I think we can see that there is some sort of cachet to using English words, or some purpose beyond pure necessity. For the terms I have listed above, I can see how some might have felt that they were associated too deeply with traditional forms of education, particularly in terms of the kanji terminologies. Perhaps we can sense a desire to emphasize the modern and global implications of these new usages in opposition to Confucian interpretations of the same concepts. Perhaps, furthermore, there is a feeling that these modern and global terminologies will be beneficial to the reader, providing a greater ability to interact outside of the Japan sphere. Or, maybe they just seem cooler.

日本人は17世紀(17th century)から19世紀(19th century)まで何にを食べましたか？　わたしは日本料理の歴史のほんをよみました, so I can tell you. Following the wake of scholars like Carol Gluck who have examined the ways in which notions about 徳川(とくがわ）日本 were manufactured during the 明治（めいじ）period, 日本の historians are beginning to examine the realities of 日本料理 prior to the 20世紀 (20th century) attempting to trace the continuities and breaks in what people ate, and in how they thought about what they ate, before the modern era.

Eric RathはKansasだいがくのせんせいです。Rathはこのほんを書きます、and if the type of work I described above is of any interest to you, it is definitely worth a look. As I'm writing this post, however, I realized that the material was less about the actual food products that 日本人 consumed, and more about their attitudes toward consumption. Rath argues that nonconsumption was a very important part of the process of eating for elite 日本人, a unique way of relating to food that would continue to the modern era, in the more ceremonial aspects of 日本の cuisine that can be observed even in contemporary アメリカの日本のレストラン。Check it out!