Hogen-kukaku-ron, the theory of the 'dialectal region', developedas a subdiscipline of the study of Japanese language, established at the beginning of this century, by Japanese linguist Tojo Misao (1884-1966). He tried to classify Japanese language into some localdialects, by considering various factors including phones, vocabule, idiomatic usage, and so on, as a whole. He believed it useful to geta better comprehension of the Japanese language.
It was a very unique method to Japan, but the discipline was disputed by Yanagita Kunio, the author of the book Kagyu-ko. First, the criteria of demarcation are neither clear norobjective. Second, the regional differences language exist actually, not in the dialect itself, but in each phenomenon of the language. And third, it was ambiguous whether the standpoint of Tojo's method was synchronic or diachronic.
Since the 1970's, Hogen-kukaku-ron became less popular, and now it only is reviewed in some introductions and anthologies about Japanese language studies. There, some Japanese linguists, particulary linguistic geographers, criticize the idea that the 'dialectal region' is equal to the division of regions, not of language itself. Nevertheless, the language can be divided into some dialects, but never into some regions. Such misunderstanding or abuse hasderived from the fact that Tojo first expressed his idea concerning-division of dialects by using maps.
The dialectal region is not a regional division, because there is not any causal relation at all between the dialects as divided and the region as expressed on a map.
