This chapter provides an overview of how to use focus groups in order to elicit language attitudes. Focus groups allow access to the collective discourse practices of a specified group of participants and can be used as a way of eliciting more natural and spontaneous responses. However, participants may feed off each other’s ideas rather than express their own original thoughts, and certain minority opinions may be downplayed, repressed, or withheld by the participants. Nevertheless, this method can be viewed as an attempt to analyse salient social representations in a communicative conversational situation and can yield otherwise unrevealed strands of research participants’ narratives. After an exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of using focus groups to investigate language attitudes, this chapter offers an overview of key practical issues of planning and research design. The analysis of the data resulting from focus group discussions is explored, particularly from a critical sociolinguistic perspective, involving mapping/categorisation of the data, tracing the circulation of people and resources over space and time, finding meaningful connections, and making valid claims. The chapter concludes with a case study of attitudes towards Breton and Yiddish in a variety of settings.

This chapter focuses on New Speakers of minority languages and their alignment with traditionalist and modernist ideals of standardization, authority and legitimacy. First, the relevance of the New Speaker paradigm for minority languages is outlined and associated standardization processes are analysed, particularly in the cases of Breton and Irish. It is argued that while standardization initiatives in both languages were carried out with a view to modernization, the processes nonetheless took place within value-laden, traditionalist contexts. The subsequent discussion focuses on the manner in which the language practices of New Speakers of Breton and Irish have come to be associated with the standard written varieties of the languages and perceived, at times, as oralizations of written standards. This association is a fundamental feature of the language ideological landscapes of Breton and Irish and is at the heart of debates pertaining to target language varieties. In order to illustrate these tensions, the chapter shows how New Speakers of Breton and Irish can align their linguistic practices with traditionalist and modernist discourses by identifying either with a conservative dialect of either language or by not focusing on any particular established target variety in their practices or ideologies.

This chapter describes some prevalent ideologies and attitudes found in minority language communities. It emphasizes the importance of listening to attitudes expressed in a community, and identifying the underlying ideologies, before developing programs to improve negative attitudes. Particularly in cases of linguistic discrimination and language trauma (e.g. Breton, Kashubian Polish), changing language ideologies is a long-term process and must be handled sensitively. The best approach is to make people aware of ideologies and how they function, through education, media and other means. Case studies address ideologies leading to the loss of Zadar Arbanasi in Croatia, and a positive shift in attitudes to Guernesiais, although these are not necessarily followed by action. In the Isle of Man, in order to change perceptions of Manx it is necessary to avoid arguments about the authenticity of the modern form of the language. In Jeju (Korea) Jejudommal is seen as a language in which emotions can be expressed more richly than in Standard Korean. Negative attitudes and ideologies associated with speaking Nahuatl are described.

SETTING OUT

In the previous chapter we suggested a basic framework for the social analysis of the causes of injustices and the ways in which they are structured in enduring institutions, structures of power and domination, and pervasive cultural attitudes and values. The next step is to review the theological resources available to Christians in order that they might make a considered action response. In the three chapters of Part II we will outline recent understandings from scripture scholars and theologians, and the developing tradition of Catholic social thought, often in response to developments in secular thinking, especially since the onset of industrialization and Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891).

We will commence our reflections by considering two key passages from the Sermon on the Mount. Firstly, St Matthew recounts that Jesus urged people to trust in providence, stop worrying about everyday concerns and seek the kingdom of God first, and God's saving justice (Mt. 6: 33). The importance of seeking the kingdom was affirmed strongly in the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes: 72): ‘Whoever in obedience to Christ seeks first the kingdom of God, will as a consequence receive a stronger and purer love for helping all his brothers (and sisters) and for perfecting the work of justice under the inspiration of charity’.

Yet traditional Catholic piety has often been very individualistic and focused on personal salvation.

RIGHTS AND REALITY

The first main area of need and justice is that of human rights in its broadest sense. Recent claims have included the right to walk the streets naked, women's absolute rights over their embryos, parents' claim to choose the gender of their children, gay and lesbian couples' demand to be able to adopt children, the right to privacy and to a good night's sleep under the flight path to a nearby airport, the right of women and ethnic minorities to equal treatment at work, children's right not to be smacked, the right to paid employment, and to choose the time of death. Campaigning groups make claims on behalf of asylum seekers or refugees in terms of intrinsic human rights. The founding fathers of the USA saw the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable. The UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights recognized the equal dignity and rights of all people and their right to life, liberty, personal security and the right not to be tortured (Articles 1, 3 and 5).

The right to life itself, from conception to natural death, is a long way from being achieved. Many countries continue the practice of executions for certain crimes and Amnesty International has reported clear evidence of torture by state authorities in many countries. The World Bank reported that the mortality rate of children under five in developing countries was over twelve times that in high income countries.

THE GLOBAL SOCIAL CONTEXT

This chapter considers the fourth and final stage of the pastoral cycle: social action responses to the reality of domestic and international injustices (Part III), in the light of the framework for social analysis suggested in Part I and the theological analysis in Part II. After a recapitulation of the argument so far, it will endeavour to suggest ways in which ordinary Christians might respond. In general terms, Christians are called to work in collaboration with all people of good will, through the institutions of civil society – NGOs, campaigning groups, voluntary organizations, and the like – to promote human flourishing, enhance human dignity, the common good and solidarity between all God's people and the integrity of the whole of God's creation. While there are numerous people of good will, members of other faiths and secular humanists, struggling against the same injustices, the focus here is primarily with the beliefs and values which motivate Catholic responses. In spite of the immensity of the tasks to be addressed, there is the reassurance in the parable of the mustard seed that even small contributions grow (Mk 4: 26–32; Mt 13: 31–32; Lk 13: 18–19).

This book has aimed to introduce the reader to the broad thrust of Catholic social thought as it has developed, particularly over the past century in response to changing circumstances and new challenges. The Church's social teaching is a dynamic creation and seeks to address the different moral questions which emerge in each age.

INTERNATIONAL INEQUALITIES AND INJUSTICES

The fifth area of concern is that of international distributive justice and authentic development. ‘The richest 5 per cent of the world's people receive 114 times the income of the poorest 5 per cent. The richest 1 per cent receive as much as the poorest 57 per cent’. There is evidence that the gap between rich and poor countries has widened in recent years. Whereas the average income per head in the richest country today is around 400 times that in the poorest country, 250 years ago the ratio was around 5:1. Billions of people in developing countries cannot satisfy their elementary needs. They are undernourished and have no access to drinkable water, sanitary and medical services, or schooling. The poorest fifth of the world's population have limited access to credit, capital and technology. Real incomes in the ‘post-industrial’ world rose at 2.4 per cent a year between 1965 and 1999 compared to 1.6 per cent in the world as a whole. The same countries also consumed half of the world's output of commercial energy and generated half of all carbon dioxide emissions although their proportion of the world's population declined from 32 per cent in 1950 to only 19 per cent today.

While it is true that for decades missionary orders addressed the educational and health needs of many of the former colonial territories, in many ways it is only in recent years that attention has shifted from the amelioration of need to the search for understanding of the root causes of persistent needs and injustices, now regarded as social and structural sins, and to social action such as political advocacy to change unjust structures.