Recount Text

A. Purpose

            Recount is a reconstruction of something happened in the past. It is the unfolding sequence of events over time and the purpose is to tell what happened. Recounts begin with by telling the reader who was involved, what happened where this event took place and when it happened.  The sequence of event is then described in some sort of order, for instance a time order (Seaton, 2007). A recount has a title, which summarizes the text.

B. Generic structures    

The generic structure of a recount consists of three parts. They are:

1.      The setting or orientation

The setting or orientation is the background information answering who, when, where and why. It is also where you give an outline of what you are writing about.

2.      Events

Events are where you write about the things that happened and are identified and described in chronological order.

3.      Conclusion

The conclusion expresses a personal opinion regarding the events described.

C. Language Features

1.      A recount text tells about past experiences. It uses past tenses; such as simple past, past perfect, past continuous, past perfect continuous tenses.

2.      A recount text describes events. It uses action verbs and adverbs.

3.      A recount text describes events in a chronological order. It uses linking word to link the events, such as next, later, when, then, after, before, first.

4.      The lexicogrammatical features of recount are focus on specific participants, use of past tense, use of material processes, circumstances of time and place, and focus on temporal sequence.

Example 

My Adolescence

I had my adolescence when I was thirteen.

It started with acne that showed up on my face. It was very annoying. It lowered my self-esteem and I was embarrassed to come out of my house and play with friends.

Fortunately, my Mum gave me a good medicine. In three weeks, the acnes started to vanish although those showed some black spots in my face.

That was my bad experience with adolescence, though there were still lots of good experience too.

Visiting Bali

There were so many places to see in Bali that my friend decided to join the tours to see as much as possible. My friend stayed in Kuta on arrival. He spent the first three days swimming and surfing on Kuta beach. He visited some tour agents and selected two tours. The first one was to Singaraja, the second was to Ubud.

On the day of the tour, he was ready. My friend and his group drove on through mountains. Singaraja is a city of about 90 thousand people. It is a busy but quiet town. The street are lined with trees and there are many old Dutch houses. Then they returned very late in the evening to Kuta.

The second tour to Ubud was a very different tour. It was not to see the scenery but to see the art and the craft of the island. The first stop was at Batubulan, a center of stone sculpture. There my friend watched young boys were carving away at big blocks of stone. The next stop was Celuk, a center for silversmiths and golden smiths. After that he stopped a little while for lunch at Sukawati and on to mass. Mass is a tourist center.

My friend ten-day-stay ended very quickly beside his two tour, all his day was spent on the beach. He went sailing or surfboarding every day. He was quiet satisfied.