According to Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson “a recount text is a piece
of text that retell past events, usually in the order in which they occurred.”
27
In addition, Anderson and Anderson point out that every time we want to tell other
people about something that happened in this life, we might be tell about what we did in weekend or what happened in the campus yesterday. So, speaking or writing about
past event like that is called a recount. Meanwhile based on Siahaan and Shinoda mark that recount text is retelling
what happened and recount has a social function because in recount text there is a story which involved other people.
28
From those explanations about the definition of recount text, it can be conclude that recount text is a text that telling about something which happened in the
past to other people either by speaking or writing or retelling past experience to other people about a information of what occurred and when it occurred.
2. The Purpose of Recount Text
When we make writing, we absolutely have a purpose to be delivered. According to Siahaan and Shinola, “recount has a social purpose that’s retell an event
with a purpose to inform or entertain the readers”.
29
In recount text, the writer must have intention to retell a story and entertain the reader and also inform what happened
and when it happened.
3. The Generic Structure of Recount Text
A recount text usually has three main sections as follow: a.
Orientation: First paragraph gives back ground information about who, what, where, and when about the story.
27
Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types, South Yarra: Macmillan Education Australia PTY LTD, 2003, p. 24
28
Sanggam Siahaan and Kisno Shinoda, loc. cit. p. 9
29
Ibid
b. Events : Series of paragraphs that retell the events in the order in which they
happened. c.
Conclusion: A concluding paragraph. The language features usually found in recount text:
a. Proper noun to identify those involved in the text
b. Descriptive words to give details about who, what, where and how
c. The use of past tense to retell the events
d. Words that show the order of events
30
4. The Example of Recount Text
As It Happened
One very spooky encounter with a UFO an unidentified flying object occurred in May 1974 involving a couple driving from
Zimbabwe to South Africa. As they carefully drove throughout the night they saw a flashing
blue-white light that was going on and off in a slow, steady rhythm. Shortly after noticing this, the car was covered in a bright circle of light.
Inside the car it suddenly became very cold. The couple wrapped themselves in thick blankets and turned on the heater bit they still
shivered. Then their car began to act very strangely. Suddenly the headlight
went of, the brakes failed, the steering wheel locked and the fuel gauge showed empty. Next the car began speeding up and raced along the road
at 190 kilometers an hour. To one side of the car, the UFO continued to follow.
The driver and his passenger lost his consciousness. When they awoke they were near the small town of Fort Victoria. The car’s
odometer showed that only 12 kilometers had been travelled, yet the
30
Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, loc. cit., p. 50 Introduction
that provide an
orientation Sequence of
events that reconstruct
the past in the order in
which event occurred
Sequence of events that
reconstruct the past in
the order in which event
occurred
