Hello, good people! How are you today? It is a good day, right? Well, when I go to campus, my close friend tells me that he just get a reward from his parent for his good job. For your information, my friend just winning a video competition and it is becomes a pride for his parent and himself. And do you know what he get? He just get an iPhone 11 Pro! Wow, OMG! That was amazing. So, my friend tell me about his happiness, about an experience which he get. My friend story about his experience can be called as recount text. Recount text is the one of text which tell the reader about story, action, or activity which happen in the past. Usually, recount text is taught in the eighth grade of junior high school in Indonesia.
 

In this article, you will find some information about recount text, including definition of recount text, social function of recount text, generic structure of recount text, language feature of recount text, and examples of recount text.

picture 1. recount text

  1. Definition of Personal Recount Text
    Recount text is a text that telling the reader about one story, action or activity. Its goal is to entertaining or informing the reader. We can also state that recount text is a text which retells event or experiences in the past.

  2. Social function of Personal Recount Text
    The social function or the purpose of recount text is to entertain/ to amuse or to inform the reader about experience, story, action or activity which happen in the past.

  3. Generic Structure of Personal Recount Text
    • Orientation – It gives the readers the background information needed to understand the text, such as who was involved, where it happened, and when it happened.
    • Events – A series of events, ordered in a chronological sequence.
    • Re-orientation – A personal comment about the event or what happened in the end.

  4. Language Feature of Personal Recount Text
    There are some language features in personal recount text, those are:
    • Using simple past tense
      i.g. I spent my holiday in Yogyakarta and I was very happy
    • Using action verbs
      i.g. spent, went, brought, took, etc
    • Using adverb or adverbial phrase to express time and place
      i.g. last month, in Malang, lately, etc.
    • Using conjunction and time connectives to connect an event to the other event
      i.g. and, or, after, before, after that, then, when, first, etc.

  5. Example of Recount Text
    Some examples of recount text as follow:

    Expired Free Ticket
    Last week I went to the theater. It was the only theater at my town. I had one free ticket to watch a movie. I had no idea about the movie I would like to watch and I did not know the schedule of that theater. So that, I just wanted to come and see if there was any good movie.
              I parked my motorcycle at the parking area and I walked slowly at the hall of the theater. I took my ticket on my wallet and go to the information section to ask about how to use the ticket that day. Unfortunately, I missed it. The ticket was already expired 2 days before.
              I went home and I was very disappointed about that.

  6. Time to Analyze!
    Okay, after you read the example of recount text above, let us try to analyze the structure of recount text above. Well, when you are asked to analyze the structure of recount text, you can analyze the text as follow:

    • If you are asked to answer the question "What is the purpose (social function) of text "Expired Free Ticket" above?" Your answer should be:
      "The purpose of recount text above is to entertain/ to amuse the readers about the writer's experience that he/she had a disappointing experience about expired free ticket".

    • If you are asked to answer the question "Mention the generic structure of the text above and show the evidences!" Your answer should be:
      • Orientation:
        "Last week I went to the theater. It was the only theater at my town. I had one free ticket to watch a movie. I had no idea about the movie I would like to watch and I did not know the schedule of that theater. So that, I just wanted to come and see if there was any good movie."
      • Events:
        "I parked my motorcycle at the parking area and I walked slowly at the hall of the theater. I took my ticket on my wallet and go to the information section to ask about how to use the ticket that day. Unfortunately, I missed it. The ticket was already expired 2 days before."
      • Re-orientation:
        "I went home and I was very disappointed about that."

    • If you are asked to answer the question "Mention the language feature used in the text above (explain briefly)!" Your answer should be:
      • Using simple past tense:
        e.g. "Last week I went to the theater"
      • Using action verbs:
        e.g. "went, had, wanted, parked, walked, took, etc."
      • Using adverb or adverbial phrase:
        e.g. "last week, 2 days before, at the parking area"
      • Using conjunction and time connectives:
        e.g. "and, so that"

Have you already understood about the recount text? Well, to make sure that you understand about the recount text, it is the time for assessment...

Please analyze the recount text on this following link "Assessment 1 - Recount Text". You need to answer just like the way of how to analyze recount text above! Good luck!