DEFINITION ::
The social function of Recount text is to retell past event or something which happened in the past. The purpose of this text can be only to inform or even just to entertain. Derewianka (1990) identified three types of Recount text, namely Personal Recount, Factual Recount, and Imaginative Recount. Personal Recount exposes an event in which the writer or the author got involved or acted in the event himself. Belong to this type among others are daily funny incidents, entries of a diary, etc. Factual Recount is a note of an event, such as scientific experiment report, police report, newspaper report, history explanation, etc. Imaginative Recount is an unreal event or story, like reading texts for language lesson, a story about a life of a slave, etc. Hardy and Kalrwein (1990) divided two kinds of Recount, namely Personal Recount and Historical Recount.
GENERIC (SCHEMATIC) STRUCTURE ::
Recount text usually has three main parts, they are :
1 Orientation : identify a person or thing acted or got involved in the event, including the time, a certain place, the situation, etc.
2 Series of Events : ordered in a chronological sequence.
3 Re-orientation : not always (optional), it contains personal comments
EXAMPLE OF RECOUNT TEXT ::
My Adventure at Leang-Leang Cave
Leang-leang Cave at Maros, South Sulawesi, Indonesia
On Sunday, my parents, my best friend Sam and I visited a cave at Maros called Leang-leang . It was my first time to visit the cave, better yet, my best friend came to visit it with me!
The cave was famous for its primitive cave wall paintings which were some hand prints and wild boar paintings. The cave and its surroundings was turned into a national park, so it was taken care of.
My parents took a rest in a small hut for visitors of the park, while Sam and I adventured around the cave with a guide. We had to climb some metal stairs to get to the cave, because the cave was embedded into a small mountain.