Recount

PURPOSE: To tell past experience (what we or someone did, what took place) that is aimed at informing and entertaining

       TYPES:

• Personal recount ( retelling of an activity that the speaker/writer has been personally involved) e.g. oral anecdote, diary entry, biography

• Factual recount (recording the particulars of an incident e.g. police report, news report)
• Imaginative recount (taking on an imaginary role and giving details of events) e.g. a day in the life of ………

GENERIC STRUCTURE

1. ORIENTATION: provides information about the setting (when & where) and introduces participants/character (who)
2. EVENTS: tell what happened, in temporal sequence (personal comment/expression of evaluation)
3. RE-ORIENTATION (optional): Its closeure of events (e.g. comments or conclusion)

LANGUAGE FEATURES: 

• Noun and pronoun as substitution of person, animal, involved thing, E.g.: David, the Monkey, We, etc.
• Specific participants (Mr./Mrs ……, our dog, the thief)
• Using Past Tense
• Action verbs/material processes (went, slept, ran, caught, arrived, bought, looked at) E.g. He went to the zoo; She was happy. 
• Temporal sequence (on Friday, one day, at the beginning, in the end, first, then, next, before, later, finally, etc)

Narrative and recount in some ways are similar. Both are telling something in the past so narrative and recount usually apply PAST TENSE; whether Simple Past Tense, Simple Past Continuous Tense, or Past Perfect Tense. The ways narrative and recount told are in chronological order using time or place. Commonly narrative text is found in story book; myth, fable, folklore, etc while recount text is found in biography.

The thing that makes narrative and recount different is the structure in which they are constructed. Narrative uses conflicts among the participants whether natural conflict, social conflict or psychological conflict. In some ways narrative text combines all these conflicts. In the contrary, we do not find these conflicts inside recount text. Recount applies series of event as the basic structure.

Example of Analytical Exposition / Contoh Analytical Exposition

Bali Bomb

The bomb, in the resort of Kuta, destroyed the Sari Club and a crowded nightspot. Many people have fallen victims to this blast. Many of them were foreign tourists, especially from Australia. They were burner beyond recognition. Some tourist who were at the scene of the blast said there were two explosions around the nightclub. One bomb had exploded outside Paddy’s Bar before a Bar bomb hit the Sari Club which was located some meters away.


Hundred were injured in the explosion and about 220 Australians remain unaccounted for. The U.K. Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said that 33 Britons were among those killed in the Bali attack. The Australian Primer Minister, John Howard, called its borders, saying it had been a problem for a long time.


Lists of missing people have been posted in Bali and official said that it could take days to identity all the victims, some of whom were trapped in the Sari Club by a wall of flames. A notice board at the hospital in Bali includes a section called “Unknown Identity” and detailed list on victims such as : “Young girl in intensive care, 11-14 years old, face burned, income, Causation,” or “Girl in intensive care, about 5 years old, 130 cm, fair skin, Caucasian with reddish brown hair. She has a purplish belly button ring.”


Many embassies, including the British and the American, are advising their people to cancel spending their planned holidays in Indonesia, and all U.S. citizens in the country have been told to leave including diplomats and non-essential government staff.

source:

Cambridge University press book - Interchange Acticvity 1 

Example/Contoh Recount Text lainnya:

Narrative Text

PURPOSE

• It is used to amuse/entertain the readers that is to gain and hold the reader’s interest in a story.
• It is used to teach and inform the writer's reflections on experience
• It can be imaginary or factual (fairy tales, mysteries, fables, romances, adventure stories, mythhs and legends), or it can also be a complicated event that leads to a crises that finally find a solution

GENERIC STRUCTURE
1. Orientation: introduces participants/character (who) ; sets the scene (when & where)
2. Complication: Development of a Crises: a crisis arises, something happened unexpectedly
3. Resolution: Solution of the crisis: for better or for worse
3. Re-Orientation: closing to the narrative (optional)
4. Coda: changes of characters, lesson taken from the story (optional)

LANGUAGE FEATURES

• Certain nouns are as pronoun of person, animal, certain thing in a story. e.g.: Stepsister, house work.
• Adjectives that form noun phrases, e.g.: long black air, two red apples, etc.
• Time connectives and conjunction to arrange the events, for example: then, before that, soon, etc.
• Adverb and adverbial phrase to point the place of event, for example: here, in the mountain, happily ever after.
• Action verbs are past tense: stayed, climbed, etc.
• Saying verbs that refer to what the human participants said, told, promised; and thinking verbs indicating thought, perception or feeling of the characters in a story, for example: felt, thought, understood
• Dialog often included and the tenses change according to the circumstances

Example of Narrative Text / Contoh Narrative Text

Snow White and the 7 dwarfs 

Orientation

Once upon the time the live a little girl named snow white.

Complication

One day she heard her uncle and Aunt talking about living snow white in the castle because they both wanted to go to American and they didn’t have enough money to take snow white.

Resolution

Snow white did not want her uncle and Aunt to do this so she decided it would be best if she run away. The next morning she ran away into the woods.

Complication

Then she saw this little cottage. She knocked but no one answered so she went inside and fell asleep.

Resolution

Mean while, she seven dwarfs were coming home from work they when inside. There they found Snow White sleeping. Then Snow White woke up she saw the dwarfs said, “What is your name? Snow White said, “My name is Snow White” and, one of the dwarfs, said, “If you wish, you my live here with us. Snow White said, “Oh could I? Thank you.” Then Snow White told the dwarfs the hole story and Snow White and the 7 dwarfs lived happily ever after.

Example/Contoh Narrative Text lainnya:

Procedure Text

PURPOSE

Procedures help us do a task or make something. They can be a set of instruction or direction

GENERIC STRUCTURE
1. Goal : Title of the text (especially for a recipe)
2. Materials : Optional, not for all procedural texts
3. Steps : a series steps oriented to achieving the Goal

LANGUAGE FEATURES

• The use of Simple Present Tense, often in an imperative form e.g. Add some sugar, prepare it,.
• The use mainly of temporal conjunction (or numbering to indicate sequence especially in written text)

a. As the sentence introducers (sequencers) especially in spoken text:
First … Firstly …
Second … Secondly …
Then … Thirdly …
After that … Afterwards …
Finally … Lastly …
e.g. Firstly, prepare some water!

b. As time introducers, especially in written text
… before …
After …
When …
While …
… until …
During …
e.g. While you are boiling the water, grind the chilies, onions and salt


Example of Procedure Text / Contoh Procedure Text 
SAMPLE.1.

How to activate a Handphone

Nowadays, we need a handphone to connect to our colleagues. We can get it easily in the shop. When we buy it we shall get a handphone, a SIM card, a battery and a charger

steps:
This is the way to activate the handphone:

• First, open the cover of the handphone
• Second, insert the SIM card after being installed
• Third, insert the battery inside
• Fourth, close the battery with a cover of handphone
• Fifth, connect the lead from the charger to the bottom of the phone.
• Sixth, connect the charger to an AC wall outlet. Charging the battery supplied with the phone may take four up to six hours.
• Seventh, when the battery is fully charged, the bar stops scrolling. Disconnect the charger from the AC outlet and the phone. Then, we are ready to make a phone call.

SAMPLE.2.

How to boil an egg

Do you know how to boil an egg? Well, this is the way!

steps:

• First, heat a saucepan of water on the stove.
• Then put the egg in the boiling water.
• After that, heat it until it boils.
• Next, cook it for three minutes.
• Don’t leave the eggs until it gets burnt.
• Now, the egg is ready to serve.
• Finally, serve it with pepper powder and salt

Sources:

Cahyono, Kristiawan Dwi and Eka Purnama.2006. Communicative Competence 2B: A course in Acquiring English Communicative Competence, For Senior High School Level, Grade XI Semester 2. Jombang: CV Karunia Agung

Sudarwati and Eudia Grace.2007. Look Ahead: An English Course for Senior High School Students Year I, Science and Social Study Program. Jakarta: Erlangga

News Item

PURPOSE: to inform readers, listeners or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important.

GENERIC STRUCTURE
1. Newsworthy Event(s) : recounts the event in summary form.
2. Background Events : Elaborate what happened, tell what caused the incident.
3. Sources : comments by participants in witnesses to and authorities expert on the event.

LANGUAGE FEATURES

• Short, telegraphic information about story captured in headline.
• Use of Material Processes to retell the event (in the text below, many of the Material Processes are nominalised)
• Use of projecting Verbal Processes in sources stage.
• Focus on Circumstances (e.g. mostly within Qualifiers).

Example of News Item/ Contoh News Item

Man Jailed for Striking RI Maid

Nesworthy event { SINGAPORE: A supervisor was jailed for two months repeatedly striking his Indonesian maid on the head and back with a television remote control, news reports said on Thursday.

Background Event 1 { Muhammad Shafiq Woon Abdullah admitted in a Singapore court he physically abused the woman on several occasions between June and October 2002, The Straits Times said.

Event 2 { The magistrate’s court heard that Shafiq, 31, began striking Winarti, 22, about a month after she atarted working for him.

Event 3 { He hit her on the head with the TV set’s remote control because he was unhappy with her work. On one occasion, he punched her on the back after accusing her of daydreaming.

Source { S.S Dhillon, Shafiq’s lawyer, said his client lost his “better sense” when he saw his daughter’s face covered as she lay in bed. He said his client thought the maid had put the child in danger.

Taken from: Singapore Strait Times 2004

Example/Contoh News Item lainnya:

Commentary Text

A commentary text is not a summary of an issue. This text consists of 90 % from the writer’s idea or opinion.

GENERIC STRUCTURE
1. Title
2. General Statement
3. Stepped explanation

Example of Analytical Exposition / Contoh Analytical Exposition

SAMPLE.1.

TV Films Must Be Censored

There are too many movies on TV featuring vulgarity, violence, superstition and indecency. Scenes depicting violence may inspire high school students to do likewise in a brawl, for example.

Films selected for broadcast should inspire viewers to be persistent in their struggle for better life, and should not feature mentally disturbed people. They should present the beauty of Indonesia and the diversity of its traditional culture. Most importantly, TV films should have plausible plots.

Given the above explanation, it is necessary to subject all TV movies to tight censorship as otherwise these films will only create a permissive and violent society.

Rahmadhi

Pandaan, Pasuruan

SAMPLE.2.

Cheating with Mobile Phones

General statement:

As police expand their investigation into cheating in the state run college entrance exam by using mobile phones, people deplore the low morality among the growing generation and many also condemn the absurdity of the current education system that drove student to do such a thing. Strong blame should also be laid on local authorities who failed to prevent such a misdeed, long anticipated in the overdeveloping information technology environment of this country.

Explanation:

About 100 students in Gwangju have been "confirmed" as having been involved in the cheating, some transmitting the answer, some receiving them, others coordinating the illicit communications outside testing places.

It is unfortunate that dishonest means were used by students who wanted to get a higher score in the state test and enter a college that is beyond their academic ability.

But what dismay us are that such scandals as this and other scandals will continue to take place around us until and unless the nation is freed from its obsession with college diplomas.

SAMPLE.3.

Filthy Terminal

The Kampung Rambutan bus station is very poor condition. Street vendors are found virtually everywhere in this terminal. The restaurant inside the bus station carelessly tosses out its dirty water as it pleases. The garbage is everywhere. The whole place stinks. The whole station is the very picture of filth.

As every public transportation, vehicle that enters this station has to pay a fee, there is, in fact, a source of money to pay people to keep the terminal clean.

Sources:

Anwar, Aisyah, Sophian Fanany, Desmal Dardjis. 2006. English Grade XII, Science and Social Programme. Jakarta: Bumi Aksara

Prasetyaningsih, Purwati, Sri, Endang, Yani, Wiannastiti, Melania. 2005. English For A Better Life : English for Language Students. Bandung : Pakar Raya Pakarnya Pustaka

Report Text

PURPOSE
to provide information about natural and non-natural phenomena, to document, to organize and store factual information on a topic, to classify and describe the phenomena about a whole class of things –living and non living, to describe the way things are.

Reports can be used in textbooks, encyclopedias, scientific magazines, historical texts, factual reading books, reference books, classroom lesson, environment program, TV documentaries, magazines etc.

GENERIC STRUCTURE
1.General Classification : tells what the phenomenon under discussion is
2.Descriptions : tells what the phenomenon under discussion is like in terms of: Parts (and their function), Qualities and Habits or behaviour

NOTES

1. Difference between reports and descriptions: Repots classify and describe a whole class of things e.g. “Houses”. By contrast, descriptive texts talk about on specific person, place or thing e.g. “My houses”. In short, reports deal with general classification and description of a thing while descriptions describe a particular thing.

2. The description can cover the facts about various aspects of the object (colour, shape, habits, behaviour etc), giving examples, comparing and contrasting, describing components and their functions.

LANGUAGE FEATURES

• Generalized participants: a whole class of things (volcanoes, newspapers, the royal family)
• Action verbs/material processes
• Simple present tense. It states general thing, like: comodo dragon usually weight more tha 160 kg.
• Language for defining, classifying, comparing, contrasting (are called, belong to, can be classified as, are similar to, are more powerful than)
• May contain technical vocabulary e.g. water contains oxygen and hydrogen
• Is written in a formal and objective style

Example of Report Text / Contoh Report Text

Volcanoes

General Classification

A volcano is a mountain which is formed by the eruption of material from the earth’s interior through a central opening or groups of openings. Volcanoes are scattered over the world. Volcanoes can be divided into three categories based on volcano forms and type of volcanic activities. They are Shield, Composite and Explosion volcanoes

Description

A shield volcano is formed chiefly of layers of basalt (a dark, heavy lava). A few shield volcanoes are composed of andesite ( a related, less dense type of lava).

A composite volcano has more frequent and violent explosive eruptions than shield volcanoes do. Lava may be extruded from either central crater or fissures on a volcano’s sides.

Explosion volcanoes are composed of inclined layers of pyroclastic debris and contain no lava. During the eruption, debris is ejected from the crater. Most explosion volcanoes are formed during one period of eruption.

*resource

Example/Contoh Report Text lainnya:

Descriptive Text

PURPOSE
to describe about a particular place, person or thing.

Descriptions are almost the same as report text. A descriptive text focuses on a specific thing and its specific features. A report usually deals with things in general. Descriptions can be used in textbook, encyclopedias, scientific magazines, historical texts, factual reading book, magazines etc

GENERIC STRUCTURE
1. Identification : identifies the phenomenon to be described
2. Description of Features : describes features in order of importance
• Parts/ things, it is about physical appearance
• Qualities, it can be the degree of beauty, excellence, value or worth
• Characteristic, it can be prominent aspects that are unique


NOTES:

1. Difference between descriptions and reports can be seen as follow: descriptive texts talk about one specific person, place or thing, e.g. “My Car” and reports classify and describe a whole class of thing, e.g. “Cars” (in general). In short, reports deal with general classification and description of thing while descriptive texts describe a particular thing.

2.The description can cover the facts about various aspects of an object (parts, colour, shape, habits, behaviour, personalities etc

LANGUAGE FEATURES

• Descriptive texts usually use Simple Present Tense
• Frequent use of Passive sentences.
• Use of be (is, am, are, was, were) for the identification and showing qualities
• Use of verb “Have” (have, has, had) in order to give detail description of the object’s features.
• Use of action verbs related to the topic, especially when describing behaviours or personalities (for persons)
• Use of adjectives in describing especially the qualities.

Example of Descriptive Text / Contoh Descriptive Text

sample.1.

Lesser Slow Loris (Nycticebus pygmaeus)

Identification:

The Lesser Slow Loris is a Mammal which can clampo onto branches for long period of time. To help it do this, the Loris has a network of blood vessels, called rate mirabile in its forearms and shanks.

Description of physical features:

It is a small mammal which is 7-10 in long (175-250 mm) and can weigh as musch as 12 ounces or 340 grams. Being nocturnal the Loris has large round eyes. The Loris has no tail but has broad grasping feet. On its second toe it has a sharp claw. It also has an enlarge thumb and a reduced index finger.

The Lesser Slow Loris is a plump animal with soft, thick fur ranging in color from light brown-grey to deep reddish-brown with a dark stripe down the back and neck. It has a long snout with comb like front teeth which are used in grooming.

Description of habitat, floor and behaviour It is found in Southern Asia, Vietnam, Borneo and Sumatra. As it is tree-living, it is restricted to tropical rain forest. The diet of the Loris is made up fruit and leaves, tender shoots, insect, birds, small mammals and reptiles. It is nocturnal and sleeps by day rolled up in a ball.

Description of interesting features:

The Loris is a solitary animal which belongs to the family of Lorisidea bush baby and potto. It is very slow but deliberate climber. An interesting fact about the Lesser Slow Loris is that it has a single-note whistle.

sample.2.

Around Bali

Identification:

Bali, the fabled “Island of the Gods” has been enchanting visitors for centuries with its rich cultural traditions and spectacular panoramas.

description:

Bali offers many things, from lofty, mist enshrouded volcanoes and cool mountain lakes down through terraced rice fields to a golden strand lapped by azure waters, every square inch of Bali offers a fresh and unforgettable image.

description:

No less enchanting are its people. Some 2,7 million souls whose artistry and piety are recognized throughout the world. Balinese Hinduism, a complex fusion of Indian cosmology, Tantric Buddism and homegrown mythology, is the primary faith of Bali’s inhabitants, and so deeply woven into the fabric of their daily lives that the line between the spiritual and the material is blurry at best.

*resource

Example/Contoh Descriptive Text lainnya: