Shortly, descriptive text is a part of factual genres in which it has social function to describe a particular person, place or thing. Besides, there are two
characteristics of that text. Those are Schematic Structure it is for identification, description, and Language Feature focus on specific participants, use of attribute
and identifying processes, frequent use of epithets and classifier in nominal groups, and use of simple present.
B. Reading
1. The General Concept of Reading
As one of English language skills, reading plays an important role in our daily life. It could be seen that we cannot separate ourselves from printed
materials. We read many fictions and non-fictions to get meaning and to get the information. There are some linguists who defined what reading is. In the
following is the definition given by Jeremy Harmer: Reading is working of eyes and brain, the eyes look the reading
and receive the message and then the message is transferred to the brain to work out the message. An exercise dominated by the eyes
and the brain. The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages.
25
Here, he pointed out that reading is a working of eyes and brain, the eyes look the reading and received the message and then the message is transferred to
the brain to work out the messages. In accordance with Jeremey Harmer‟s statement, Christine Nuttal in her
book “Teaching Reading Skill in A Foreign Language” also pointed out that
reading is a meaning, specifically with the transfer of meaning from mind to mind; the transfer of message from writer to reader.
26
Therefore, reading can be described as a meaning-getting process where the recognition of important
elements of the meaning in their essential relation transferring meaning from the printed written to the mind. In short, the two linguists above said that to get the
25
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 1993, p.153.
26
Christine Nuttall, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, Bangkok: Macmillan, 1996, pp. 2
—3.
