Katakana-go (foreign words) in an Internationalized and Aging Society : From the Point of View of Linguistic Ecology

为了调查日本“Yakusho Katakana-go”（在政府机关创造和使用的外来语）的实际情况，在过去的两年里进行了两种研究。一个是列出正在处理片假名泛滥的县的名单，并根据抄写方式建立一个包含1000个单词的数据库，即(1)使用片假名；(2)使用片假名并进行解释；(3)不使用片假名。二是对政府机关（片假名的发送者）、报社（传送者）、老年人（接收者）、老年人福利机构（近接收者）、日语教师（近接收者）五组对片假名的态度进行问卷调查。结果如下：1)很少有县认真解决片假乡问题。2)片假名的抄写因县而异。3)大约50%的老年人希望对片假名的使用有统一的标准。4)报社通常坚持用汉字和/或平假名代替片假名，尽管总的来说，片假名加解释是压倒性的支持。5)在问卷中列出的12个单词中，众所周知的是片假名转录（saabisu“服务”，borantia“志愿者”，ibento“事件”），尽管新创造的单词被证明是反对的（ameniti“便利”，bariahurii“无障碍”，inhoomudokonsento“知情同意”等）。

To investigate the actual condition of 'Yakusho Katakana-go' (foreign words created and used in the government offices) in Japanese, two kinds of research were conducted during the last two years. One was to make a list of prefectures which are tackling the current flood of katakana-go and to make a database of 1,000 words in terms of the way of transcription, that is (1) in katakana or (2) in katakana with an explanation or (3)not in katakana. The other is to conduct a questionnaire survey as to the attitude toward the katakana-go in the following five groups : goverment offices(sender of katakana-go), newspaper offices(conveyor), aged people(receiver), welfare offices for the aged(near receiver) and Japanese language teachers(near receiver).The results is following :1)Few prefectures are seriously tackling the issues of katakana-go.2)Transcription of katakana-go varies from prefecture to prefecture.3)About 50% of the aged peop1e group want some unified criteria of the katakana-go usage.4)Newspaper offices most often insist upon the replacement the katakana-go with kanji and/or hiragana, though overall, katakana-go with an explanation is overwhelmingly supported.5) Among the 12 words listed in the questionnaire, the well-known ones are for katakana transcription(saabisu 'service', borantia 'volunteer', ibento 'event'), although new coined ones proved to be against(ameniti 'amenity', bariahurii 'barrier-free', inhoomudokonsento 'informed consent' etc.).