ORATORIO see also Lexisdb

ORATORY

THE TERM IN CONTEXT

To see many contexts, click here: DB, Viganò, Vecchi, Chavez,

(note: Oratorio is not a frequent reference in other texts in corpusdb)

LINGUISTIC COMMENT

The Italian term oratorio can be written either as Oratorio or oratorio, and obviously it can be pluralised (oratori). We find a few examples of the latter, and where we do it is almost always in the form oratori, that is, uncapitalised.

The term is most usefully viewed in the given contexts above: we see that Don Bosco capitalises the term almost always in reference to the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales (Oratorio di San Francesco di Sales). Then gradually as Salesian tradition develops, we see references to oratorio uncapitalised, especially where the context is a general reference to the concept rather than to the first Oratory, or that of Don Bosco, or to other specific Oratories.

In terms of clusters that are meaningful and indicative, in the DB corpus, the most frequent reference is to L’Oratorio di San Francesco di Sales (26x), followed by casa dell’Oratorio (House of the Oratory, or perhaps even the Oratory home) (11x), Memorie dell’Oratorio (Memoirs of the Oratory) (9x) and giovani dell’Oratorio (young people of the Oratory) (5x). Each of these references helps us gain a clear idea of what the Oratory was for DB: something which employs the spirit and approach of St Francis de Sales, a ‘homely’ place, a place that held many dear memories, though Don Bosco wrote the work by that title not just to reminisce but to define for posterity, in narrative form, what the Oratory really was; and of course, a place for the young.

The hefty Viganò corpus is also indicative when we look at collocations and clusters: oratorio collocates readily with Don Bosco, Valdocco, primo, giovani, esperienza, memorie, criterio, pastorale, permanente (ongoing), and in those words we really have his prime message to us about the oratory in Salesian discourse – Don Bosco’s first Oratory at Valdocco for young people, about which we can read in the Memoirs of the Oratory, is our ongoing (permanent) criterion, the very first criterion, of our ministry for the young. The clusters, in rough order of frequency are: Oratorio di Valdocco, di Don Bosco, Memorie dell’Oratorio, del primo Oratorio.

As a matter of interest, oratorio meaning a sung musical item appears once in the corpus!

Contextual examples:

(note that the contexts are many, some 500 or more. These are best viewed above)

...Cenni storici intorno all’Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales L’idea degli Oratori nacque dalla ...	Cenni Storici DB
.. Venuto nella casa dell'oratorio si recò in mia camera, per darsi, come egli diceva, intieramente ...	Dom Savio DB
... di questa scintilla-prima nell’«Opera degli Oratori». Per lui l’«Oratorio» significava, in definitiva, quello che noi oggi chiamiamo pastorale giovanile...	ACG304 Viganò

...

STATISTICS

(explanation: R1-5 indicate a word 1-5 places to the right of the ‘central term’; L1-5 ..... to the left...)

Over the entire corpusdb we find oratorio in 103 out of 247 texts, or 47%. This frequency suggests that the term is meaningful for Salesian discourse, at least in a linguistic sense. We know from other factors that this is certainly true at other levels of the discourse.

It appears 539 times in more than a million words in corpusdb. This is calculated as a frequency of 0.3. The noun with greatest frequency in the corpus (0.44) is vita (life). Only grammatical words like di (of), e (and) la (the), che (that) etc. have a frequency of 1.0 or more. The most frequent is di (3.89).

When the term is part of a group (3 word cluster), the most frequent clusters are: oratorio-centro giovanile – oratory-youth centre - (50x), Oratorio di Valdocco Valdocco Oratory (28x), Memorie dell’Oratorio Memoirs of the Oratory (18x). But other words that collocate with oratorio significantly are Bosco (R3 21x), Sales (R5, 23x), then less frequently but of interest still, esperienza (experience), pastorale (ministry), regolamento (rule as in the Rule of the Oratory, written by DB).

Keywords (a keyword is a word calculated for frequency in texts where it appears, and then on the basis of a reference text – the corpus. These two are then calculated in respect of each other to arrive at ‘keyness’)

Oratorio is not a keyword across the entire corpus, but it certainly is in the smaller corpus made up solely of texts written by Don Bosco. This is no surprise!

Lexical ‘keyness’ is not always an indicator of the importance of a concept – it is useful in determining what might be a concept, but not for proclaiming the importance of a concept. Oratorio is a case in point. There is no doubting the fundmantal importance of the Oratory concept in Salesian discourse, despite the fact that it does not achieve lexical ‘keyness’ in corpusdb.

Cf. also:

A concept map of Salesian discourse with Oratory as the base concept.

The ‘narrative’ version of the concept map.