the main objective in teaching writing is to make the student have an ability to communicate in written form considering those components.
2.2.5. Descriptive Text
There are so many kinds of text in English. In this section I will present the definition ofdescriptive text, the generic structure of descriptive text, and
lexicogrammatical features of descriptive text. 2.2.5.1 Definition of Descriptive Text
Anderson 1997:2 stated that there are two main categories of texts in English. They are literary and factual. Each text type has a common way of using
language. Literary texts can make the readers laugh or cry, think what about their own life or consider their beliefs. There are three main text types in this category.
They are narrative, poetic, and dramatic. Media texts such as films, videos, television shows and CDs can also fall into this category.
Factual texts present information or ideas and aim to show, tell or persuade the audience. Factual texts include advertisement, announcements,
internet web sites, current affairs shows, debates, recipes, reports and instructions. The main text types in this category are recount, response, explanation,
discussion, information report, exposition, and procedure. Descriptive text belongs to factual texts because it tells about real something by describing it.
Meyers 2005:60 stated that a good descriptive text has a unifying idea and everything that support the idea. As Broadman, Oshima and Hogue 1997: 50
state that descriptive writing appeals to the sense, so it tells how something looks,
feels smells, tastes, and or sounds. In other words, it can be said that descriptive text captures one experience of a person, place or thing into words by appealing to
the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. As mentioned by Savage and Shafiei 2007:15, in a descriptive paragraph,
the writer uses words that create an image and help the readers see, touch, feel, smell, or taste the topic that he or she is describing. So, descriptive text uses detail
explanations about something, person, or place by using words that related to describe the topic.
From the definitions above, it can be said that descriptive text captures one experience of a person, place or thing into words by appealing to the five senses:
sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.
2.2.5.2 Generic Structure of Descriptive Text Gerot and Wignel 1994:208 stated that descriptive writing has two generic
structures, 1 identification, 2 description. Basically the generic structure in descriptive text is identification which introduces the participants such as the
person who, place or thing to be described what, and a description which describes parts, qualities, or characteristic of the participant.
2.2.5.3 Language Features of Descriptive Text Besides having generic structure, descriptive text also has significant
lexicogrammatical features that support the form of a descriptive text. The following are significant lexicogrammatical features of descriptive text:
a. Focus on specific participants
b. Use of Attributive and Identifying processes
c. Frequent use of Epithets and classifiers in nominal groups
d. Use of simple present tense
Gerot and Wignell, 1994:208
2.2.6 Action Research
