Method for deciding whether to use katakana or kanji version of the word?

Question

I often see words in sentences written in カタカナ or 漢字 that could be swapped for a common word of the other form. I am aware that there are lots of カタカナ words that do have a 漢字 form, but where the 漢字 form is not commonly used.

I was looking up how to translate the word "tattoo" and found that both 「タトゥー」 and 「入れ墨・刺青」seem to be used interchangeably.「タトゥーといっても本当に刺青ではなく、簡単に貼って落とせる水転写シールです。」 I'm sure there are better examples then my tattoo one, but you get the idea.

Is there a rule/method for deciding which form to use? Maybe level of politeness/familiarity with the other person, or medium of communication would lead to the decision?

(I found both What determines whether a word gets a kanji compound or katakana? and When writing for general public, is there a general guideline for selecting kanji? questions very informative, but I don't feel they addresses this facet of the kanji/katakana choice relationship)

Answer 1

I don't think there is a method to decide.

For the case you mention, タトゥー is probably more thought of as Western tattoo, whereas 刺青 is the Japanese counterpart, more likely to be associated with the Japanese culture of tattoos (see Wikipedia), including associations to criminality, or tradition, as the case may be.

There is レッスン vs. 授業, ウォーキング vs. 散歩, ad infinitum. All these word pairs are not pairs of pure synonyms. Both parts of such a word pair continue to coexist, because they convey something different. In broad terms, the カタカナ words have an air of modernism and the 漢字 words sound more traditional, but being fond of tradition in Japan doesn't make the Japanese/Chinese-derived word more appropriate. I think many beginners (including myself) prefer to use 漢字 for words which are better written in かな, or even have a more appropriate 外来語 counterpart.

Talking to elderly people, some of the newer カタカナ words (like タトゥー) may not be as easily understood, so then the Japanese/Chinese-derived words would be the better choice. But in general it really does depend on the word you are thinking of.

An almost unrelated phenomenon is that plants and animals are often written in カタカナ (e.g. カマキリ vs. 蟷螂). Here, the word is the same and the choice of カタカナ vs. 漢字 is only a matter of taste or context, not a matter of meaning. As for カマキリ, sometimes these words are 義訓 readings, i.e. the choice of 漢字 is not related to the reading. Recently, we had サルスベリ vs. 百日紅. Sometimes the reading is just the 訓読み of the 漢字 for the plant or animal, but still, especially in a scientific context, the word is written in カタカナ, e.g. シラカバ for 白樺 "Japanese white birch".