CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
E. The Concept of Descriptive Text
Descriptive text is one of text types or genre. Anderson states that, a factual description, describes a particular person, place or thing. In other words, a particular person, place or thing is described in details in this composition10. It means that descriptive text is a text which says what a thing, animal, or a person is like. It is purpose is to describe and reveal a particular thing, person, or place.
Futhermore, Corder states that descriptive text is a strategy for presenting of a verbal potrait of person, a place or thing. It can be used as a technique to enrich other from of writing or as dominant strategy for
10 Mark Anderson. Text Types In English. (New York: Macmillan Education. 2003).p.26
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developing a picture of "what is looks like"11. It means that it can be concluded that descriptive text is a kind of writing that consist of description, characteristic, definition of place, object or person.
Morever Wishon states ate go to sett that, descriptive writing as the form of writing that is used to describe the story, acts or events. It will be usedto create a visual imagination of people, place and event of unit of time, day, and reason. It might be used also to describe more that the out or appearance of people. It may tell about their traits of characters or personality12. It means that writing descriptive textis a process of writing text that describe people, place, object, or thing.
Descriptive is a text which says what a person thing is like. Its purpose to describe and reveals a particular person, place or thing13. The purpose of writing is to give a picture or to describe about something.
Description recreates sense impression by translating into words, the feel, sound, taste, smell, and look of thing. Emotion may be describing too,
“feelings such as happiness, fear, loneliness, gloo, and joy”.
2. The Purpose of Descriptive Text
The purpose of derçriptive text is to create a vivid impression of a person, place, object, or event. The writers use description to persuade others to think or act in particular ways. As the examples in the following
11 S.P.Corder. Error Analysis Interlanguage. (London: Oxford University Press.
1990).p.163
12 Wishon. Writing for Teacher . (London: Oxford University Press. 1980).p.33
13 Boardman Cynthia A and Jia Frydenberg. Writing toCommunicate. (New York:
Prantice Hall. 2001).p.19
chart show, description enables us to entertain, express feelings, relate experience, inform, and persuade.
Purpose Description
To entertain An amusing description of a
teenager's bedroom
To express feeling A description of your favorite outdoor retreat so your reader understand why you enjoy it so much
To relate experience A description of your childhood home to convey a sense of poverty you grew up
To inform (for a reader unfamiliar with the subject)
A description of a newborn calf for a reader who has never seen one
To inform (to create a fresh the appreciation for familiar)
A description of an apple to help reader rediscover the joys of this simple fruit
To persuade (to convince the reader that some music videos degrade woman)
A description of a degrading music
Table 1.Purposes for Description14
Although it can serve a variety of purposes, description is most often expressive, so it most often helps writers share their perceptions. As human beings, we have a compelling desire to connect with other people by sharing our experience with them.
3. Kinds of Descriptive Text
As we know that descriptive text is a text to describe something, such as persons, places, or things. Here are the brief explanations:
14 Barbara Fine Clouse. Patterns for a Purpose. (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Ic, 2003).p102-103.
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a. Description of person
Every person is unique, and therefore they are also different.
In describing someone, sometimes you may ask “how or what's look like”. There three different ways to describing someone depend on the situation: identification, impression, and character sketch.
1) Identification
Identification only consist certain statistical information (height, weight, age), visible characteristics (color of hair, skin, and eyes), and recognizable marks (scars, birthmark)15.
2) Impression
Unlike the identification, the impression may not identify a person, but it dos convey an overall idea of him or her.
Many details may be missing. Although impression is usually less complete and informative tha identification, it may be more effective in capturing an individual‟s strikng or distinctive trait.16 3) Character sketch
More complete descriptions of people are usually called character sketch, they may be referred to as profiles, literary portraits, and biographical sketches. As its name indicates, a character sketch delineates the character of a person, or at least
15 Michael E. Adelstein and Jean G. Pival. The Writing Commitment. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1976).p.149
16 Michael E. Adelstein and Jean G. Pival. The Writing Commitment. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1976).p.150
his or her main personality traits. In the process, it may include identification and an impression.
b. Description of a Place
There is no pattern for arranging sentences in descriptive paragraph in describing place. It is not necessary to begin with one area and then proceeds to another one. The description must be organized so that the reader can imagine the scene described.
Smalley and Ruetten said that to make the paragraph more interesting, you can add a controlling idea that states an attitude or impression about the places being described, and the arrangement of the details in your description depends on your subject and purpose.
c. Description of a Things
To describe a thing the writer must have a good imagination.
Besides, to make our subjects interesting to our readers, the proper nouns and effective verbs can be used:
1) Using proper noun
To fill our descriptive writing with concrete details, we may also want to include a number of proper nouns, such as names of particular persons, places, and things that familiar with the readers and they can recognize easily; for example; Arizona, University of Tennessee.
2) Using effective verb
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We know how important verbs are to narration, but effective verbs can also add much to a piece of description.
Writers use to make descriptions more specific, accurate, and interesting. For instance, “the wind had chiseled deep grooves into the sides of the cliffs” is more specific than “the wind had made deep grooves”. The verb chiseled also gives the reader a more accurate picture of the winds action than made does.
4. Generic Structure of Descriptive Text
Generic structure is thing that should be contained in writing genre of text. It distinguishes one text to another. The significance of generic structure of descriptive text is identification and description17. The generic structure in descriptive text includes:
a. Identification
Identification is to identify the phenomena that to be described. It identifies who or what to be describe18. The identification usually stated in the first paragraph to introduce reader what to be described in the next paragraph. It is also can be form or definition
17 Mark Anderson. Text Types In English. (New York: Macmillan Education. 2003).p.62
18SarieD, Journal of English Language Teaching, Vol. I no 2, Maret 2013.
b. Description
The function of description is to describe part, qualities and characteristics. In this part, the writer explains about the subject in detail. It uses to support the identification. Description is a series of paragraph about the subject where each paragraph usually begins with a topic sentence previews the details that will be contained in the remainder of the paragraph.
5. Language Features
Beside the generic structure, genre also has language features as the guideline in writing very part of the generic structure of the text. It deals with the grammatical features.
a. Focus on specific participants, for example: my English teacher, Andini's cat, my favorite place.
b. Use of simple present tense
c. Verbs of being and having relational processes for example: my mom is really cool, she has long black hair.
d. Use of descriptive adjective, functioning to provide more information to a noun by describing or modifying it. For example:
strong legs, white fangs.
e. Use of detailed noun phrase to give information about the subject, for example: very beautiful scenery, a sweet young lady, very thick fur.
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f. Use of action verbs 'material processes', for example, it eats grass, it runs fast.
g. Use of adverbials phrase to give additional information about the characteristic of the subject. An adverbial phrase is a phrase with preposition as the head, which is that followed by another phrase, showing place, time, purpose, etc. For example: fast at tree house h. Use of figurative Language, for example: John is as white as chalk.19
Here is example of descriptive text My Favorite Cafe
My favorite cafe to relax is a small cafe down the street from where I live. This cafe is on the small side street and as soon as you see it, you feel like going in. There are three windows on either side of the door, and each window has a small table all around the room. Even though it is not a big place, it is size make it cozy and comfortable. I always like to sit at a small table in the corner near the front windows. From here, I can look at the artwork on the walls and at the pretty plants hanging from the ceiling. With a strong cup of coffee and a good book, I feel very happy and relaxed in my favorite cafe.