The survey founds the following attitudes towards and understanding of loanwords.
- More than 80% of the respondent understand the meaning of “hazaado mapppu” (hazard map), “asuriito” (athlete), and “infura” (infrastructure), which shows they are gaining ground as general terms. Meanwhile, the word “Kontentsu” (content) was understood by around 70%.
Only a small number of people aged 80 or over cited “I knew the meaning very well” for each of the above terms. For each word, the majority of university graduates cited “I knew it,” while less than half of junior high school graduates answered so.
- How people percept loanwords was also surveyed. In terms of “loanwords vs. terms translated into Japanese” and “increase in loanwords,” ‘non-conservative or unconventional’ responses, such as “I support the use of loanwords” and “I am in favor of the increase of loanwords,” accounted for about 60%. For wasei-eigo, or Japanese pseudo-Anglicism, more than half of the respondents chose “unavoidable to a certain degree”—an answer indicating the acceptance of the current status. Meanwhile, there was a clear generation gap regarding “loanwords vs. terms translated into Japanese” and “increase in loanwords,” with a tendency that the younger the more people choose non-conservative (unconventional) responses.
- Compared to the survey conducted 20 years ago, the overall understanding level of each term was raised, and this tendency was observed in every age group. However, while some terms such as “hazaad mappu” marked a significant increase in the understanding level, while others such as “kontentsu” had a relatively small increase.
In terms of “loanwords vs. terms translated into Japanese,” “becoming conservative because of aging” is observed for particular age groups. Over these 20 years, there has been no change in attitudes towards “increase in loanwords” and “acceptance of wasei-eigo” for most of the age groups, but “becoming more tolerant because of aging” is seen among those who were 60 years old or over in 2002 for both questions.