Factual Recount
It tells the historical or biographical recounts including autobiography and memoirs. Different from personal recount; the
purpose of factual recount is to inform the event.
Imaginative Recount
It tells the fantasy or adventure story. It is not always written within the author’s experiences. It is usually made for the purpose of
educating, such as textbooks.
3. Linguistic Features of Recount Text
Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson mention the language features usually found in a recount are:
a. Proper nouns to identify those involved in the text.
b. Descriptive words to give details about who, what, when, where
and how. c.
The use of past tense to retells the events. d.
Words that show the order of events for example, first, second, next, then, finally, et cetera.
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A recount text is written in the past tense because it tells events that have already happened. A recount text uses the first person pronouns I and We, if the
story is happening to the person writing the recount and uses the third person if an observer is telling the story.
According to Emilia, a recount also has several linguistic features, among others:
a. Use specific participants
b. Use of the past tense
c. Use of temporal and additive conjunctions to connect messages of clauses
d. Personal comments, except for factual recounts
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Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English 1, South Yarra: Macmillan, 1997, p.50
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Emi Emilia, Teaching Writing: Developing Critical Learners, Bandung: Rizqi, 2010, p.107
4. Schematic Structures of Recount
Even though there are several kinds of recount text, basically they have the same characteristics in the schematic structures. A recount text consists of three
part, those are orientation, events, and reorientation. Those will be described as follow:
a. Orientation
Orientation is introducing the participants who involved in the story, the place where the story happened and when the story
happened. It orients the readers to the events that follow which introduce characters in a setting of time or place or sometimes both.
In some recounts, introduced to Indonesian students, has an Opening Salutation such as “Hi, my name is Rizki.”, in the beginning of the
story.
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Since orientation is the first part of a recount text, therefore it must be interesting in order to attract readers’ attention.
b. Events
Event is the main important activities or events that occurred in that story of text. The function of events is to give a sequence of
events. It presents the events chronologically in order which they happened.
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c. Reorientation
Reorientation is optional. It returns the reader to the point of departure and sometimes the writer also gives comments on the whole
sequence of events described.
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Some recounts have an evaluative
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Emi Emilia, Teaching Writing: Developing Critical Learners, Bandung: Rizqi, 2010, p.107
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Emi Emilia, Teaching Writing: Developing Critical Learners, …………….…, p.107
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Emi Emilia, Teaching Writing: Developing Critical Learners, ……………....., p.107
comment or a conclusion which may constitute the writer’s comment on events described previously, but this is just optional. The
conclusion is written in the last paragraph, and because this part is optional, some recounts may not have this conclusion paragraph.
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The following text is the example of schematic structure of personal recount text:
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My Summer Holiday
Last summer holiday, my family and I spent one night at the countryside. We stayed in a small house. It had a big
garden with lots of colorful flowers and a swimming pool. First, we made a fire in front of the house. Then, we
sat around the fire and sang lots of songs together. Next, we sat in the living room and watched a movie. Finally,
everybody fell asleep there.
We woke up very late in the morning and had breakfast. In the afternoon we went home. We were all very
happy.
5. Purpose of Recount Text
