In his July 22 article, "Katakana makes Japanese trendy and accessible," Roger Pulvers notes that "Sometimes a foreign katakana word or phrase enters Japanese to replace a perfectly good native equivalent. This makes something appear more attractive and trendy than it normally would."
While this is surely true, the author might take into account the fact that making things "more attractive and trendy" is only one of many strategies in employing katakana. There is also a trend in which things are stigmatized by the use of katakana. Diseases, pestiferous bugs, social problems and psychological abnormalities, etc., often receive katakana names and are thereby "neutralized" and made to appear foreign in origin even in cases where they are homegrown or limited to Japan.
Pulvers cites some colorful examples, and his article is a pleasure to read; but I would have appreciated a more general summation of the many uses of katakana.
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