Introduction
In this project, the group members were Linnet Edwards, Steven Shinmachi, Lin, and Elizabeth Chandler.
Within the group, there were two teams of two persons each, Elizabeth and Linnet, who worked on the AGC webpage, and Steven and Lin, who worked on the Pocky webpage. Each group provided screenshots of their respective websites, and each went through the text and organized the Sino-Japanese, Native-Japanese, and Foreign Loan Words into a table, separated by whether they were a verb, adjective, or noun. Grammatical particles are not included, and adverbs have been grouped with the adjectives, while adverbial nouns with the nouns.
We chose to examine two different forms of advertising websites, one for the Japanese manufacturing company AGC, and one for the Japanese snack company Ezaki Glico’s popular product Pocky.
AGC: https://www.agc.com/news/detail/1201504_2148.html
Pocky: http://cp.pocky.jp/jimoto-pocky/about/
Upon first glance, the ACG page we chose to analyze may appear overwhelming; this is due to the overload of Kango words used in this company’s product promotion. Because Kango is used primarily in formal settings it’s appearance here was expected as this manufacturing company’s main buyers are large corporations. In order to best relay specific information about their product, the company must include many technical terms on their webpage, those of which are written in Kango.
This specific page, however, is for the promotion for a newly released glass technology; in it, the writer gives specific examples for the product’s application and use. The presentation of real-life examples introduces more Wago to the text. This can be seen when the writer speaks of the natural disasters that occur in Japan. The subject of the paragraph drives the type of language used. Taking a look at the first and third paragraph, one can see the increased use of Garaigo. This can be explained by the topic at hand. When speaking of the product itself, or the features the glassware has, the writer is forced to use katakana to correctly express terminology derived from English.
Examples of these include:
- ラミセーフシェルター™
- ベターリビング
Despite the large Kango presence, the AGC webpage is very straight forward. It contains large blocks of texts detailing the specifications of the product, the situation it was designed for, and safety information. There are only three infographics on the entire page. The first diagrams the glass, it’s thickness, and the company logo. The second displays company contact information, and the last explains the specifications of three different types of glass in this line.
Through this, it is made clear that the target audience for this product is not the general public. Furthermore, due to its highly technical and specialized information, much of the article is written using Sino-Japanese words. Of all the nouns used, 65% are Sino-Japanese. This can be compared to the 27% of Native Japanese and 8% of Foreign Loan Words. Most of these nouns showcased a desire for clear and specific language, which included words involving measurements, product information, etc.
Most Native-Japanese words were almost exclusively adjectival and adverbial nouns, with a few exceptions. As we learned in class surnames and natural phenomena are written using native Japanese words. We found various examples of this on the AGC webpage. Such as 玉城 和美, the contact name for this product, and words like 下 、屋根、窓, as well as 宮川, the name of the manager.
Foreign-loan words, on the other hand, appeared to have more nouns. However, those mentioned were mainly related to company and product names, foreign measurement systems, and words relating to the internet of which there are no Japanese equivalents.
For example, the promotional webpage talks about the 「ラミセーフシェルターTM」where ラミ refers to the word, “laminated”. This is one of the various examples Japanese has of foreign language shortening. In this particular case, the front end of the word “laminated” is used to represent the word’s meaning. The abridged “Lami”, is used in conjunction with the words “セーフ”:safe, and “シェルター”: shelter; both of which possess a native Japanese equivalent. This poses the question: Why not use the native Japanese word in this context?
Notice the trademark symbol at the end of the word. Its presence is not merely to indicate the term has been claimed, rather it helps to distinguish it as the title of the company’s product, differentiating it from a general safe shelter. Furthermore, katakana is used to emphasize words; they stand out for being written in a different writing system. For this reason, katakana is widely used in the advertisement industry and on this webpage.
Though only selling glass, AGC advertises its product as a safe shelter in its entirety. Had this been advertised in English the glass would most likely be marketed as the staple for a safe shelter, rather than the shelter itself. This difference could arise from the way Japanese writing forms contain specific meaning. In other words, many kanji are compounds that hold reading form and meaning. In this example, the katakana phrase is created in such a way that it also contains both pieces of information.
The usage of “stock” and “glass” instead of Native-Japanese equivalent words is another example of this phenomenon. Stock was used as part of the word “housing stock” (i.e. the total number of houses in an area) combining a Sino-Japanese word and a Foreign-Loan word. This appears only because this form of “stock” seems to not have a Japanese equivalent to succinctly express this concept, or the word that was used has simply fallen out of fashion. The same can be said for “glass”. In specific, it is talking about glass in a pane form, not about a glass cup. Again, it seems whatever the Native-Japanese or Sino-Japanese word for this word has fallen into obscurity. This is also not an advertising choice to appear “more foreign”, as many words in Japanese to express different types of glass also use the foreign-loan word, such as colored glass（色ガラス）, broken glass（割れたガラス）, frosted glass（すりガラス）, etc.
When analyzing pure adjectives, we found that their usage is extremely small and limited only to Native-Japanese words. (Note: there are many words in the noun list, specifically the Sino-Japanese list, that can be used as adjectives. However, they were not and were instead used in their noun form, and therefore, are not being counted. Adjectives are only considered “true adjectives” if they were used in the adjectival form.) Three were used in direct appeal to the consumer, such as 良き(い)社会, a good society, or 新たな価値, new value. The only two used in product specification were にくい and 高い, the former relating to the glass’s strong durability, while the latter had to do with its usage as a crime prevention device (高い防犯性能).
Comparatively, we noticed that verbs are more numerous than the adjectives. To our surprise, there are more Native-Japanese verbs than Sino-Japanese. Again though, the foreign loan words are the smallest list. With the foreign loan words, most again have to do with giving the image and feeling that do not have a proper Native-Japanese or Sino-Japanese word equivalency, or the equivalent is no longer used. There is one (シェア) that’s usage is directly tied to its meaning on the internet, as in to share something on Facebook or Twitter. The second list is the Sino-Japanese words, most of which include highly specific verbs that correspond to the formal tone of this text. However, interestingly, there are more Native-Japanese words in comparison, mainly relating to general concepts such as 守る to protect、割れた separated、持つ to hold, etc. where the Native-Japanese word would be more appropriate due to the general nature of word it is modifying, or just in general.
Looking at the Pocky website, we decided to group the websites nouns, adjectives, and verbs to Native Japanese, Sino-Japanese, and Western-Loan. After grouping them, we found many different Native and Sino-Japanese nouns and verbs, with very little adjectives and wetern-loan words overall.
Throughout the article, the most frequently used words were Sino-Japanese, with Native Japanese and Western-Loan to follow. This makes sense, as the website is targeting mostly Native Japanese people giving them a report of the quality and specialty of the different fruits and foods they use for their product. The high usage of Native and Sino-Japanese also suggests that the website is targeting adults as well. Nouns and verbs were used the most throughout the texts, with very limited number of adjectives. Within the Native and Sino-Japanese words however, we saw that Sino-Japanese words had more verbs than Native. Western-Loan words were very rare, as there were 6 in total.
The usage of Sino-Japanese is thought to have more names, fancier verbs and content nouns. Compared to Native Japanese words, they contain easy verbs and common situation words. Western-Loan words on the other hand contain words that carry foreign and international concepts. Knowing this, the high usage of Sino-Japanese words made sense because of the professionalism the words show to the intended adult audience. At first, it was surprising to see the lack of Western-Loan words on a Pocky website as they are a globally well-known company. Looking closer into our website however, within the context of our text found in the website, it made sense to not have them because the audience was catered more towards adults to inform them about the background behind some pocky’s flavor; not a website advertising pocky.
To our surprise, there were no words written in non-standard script. This made sense because the intent of the website was not to seem flashy and cool, but rather to inform the intended audience about their product’s flavor. However, there were words like あまざけ throughout our text which were written both like あまざけ and 甘酒.
After reading and learning about Seaton’s idea of imagery words generate, I realized that this website uses mostly Sino-Japanese to generate a professional-like imagery. Due to the intended audience being adults, this particular part of the pocky website did not need to add any Western-Loan or Native-Japanse words to try and advertise the product. Instead, having the professional imagery allows the website to inform the intended audience clearly and easily with the reading.