浜田先生 taught us that long ago, Hiragana was used by women while Katakana was used by men. This was an interesting bit of information. I tried to see if this had had any effect on today's use of Katakana but I could not find any correlations.
However, I found that nearly every Japanese company writes its own name in Katakana. For instance:
"Sony Corporation" は 日本語で ソニ です。 http://www.sony.co.jp/ これを みってください。
Also, sometimes the names of shows are written in Katakana, even when the name of the show might be composed entirely of Japanese words:
サムライ チャンプル は アニメ ですよ。 It is set in the ええどう era of Japan, a time when the society was feudal. Given what 浜田先生 had said about Katakana being used by men and Hiragana by women, I thought it might be insightful to see if there was any mention of that in this show. In an episode of the show, one of the characters is learning to read. However, he is taught in Hiragana instead of Katakana. Evidently the show is not that detail oriented, but then again i suppose it is very anachronistic as well.
So based on this analysis I can add to the list of Katakana uses the category of Proper Nouns (of businesses, titles, products).
