PAPER 1

THE FRAMEWORK OF RECOUNT TEXT ANALYSIS IN SFL

PERSPECTIVE

Subject: Functional Grammar

Lecturer: Eri Kurniawan, Ph.D

By:
Adie Wirahardi Kusuma 1802890

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

INDONESIA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

BANDUNG 2019
A. Introduction
In the English language classroom, the students will always be required to be able to
write based on genres that have been determined and included in the national education
syllabus by the authority. One of the text genres that should be learned and is quite
prominent among non-native English teachers is recount.
B. Recount
Recount text can be considered as one of the most commonly studied text type in
English classroom. It describes an event that has happened in the past and is always written
in the form of past tense (Barwick, 1999). To tell any event in the past is basically intended
to entertain or to inform the readers what and when it happened (Nurohmah, 2013; Gerot
and Wignel, 1995) and to assess the significance, or in other words, while some readers
respond emotively to the event, others critically assess the aspects of it. In addition, there
are some kinds of a recount, such as diaries, letter, biographies, and speeches (Anderson and
Anderson, 2003).
In a broader exposure, there are some types of recounts with varying levels of language
and contents according to the audience or reader and purpose, such as personal recount,
factual recount, literary or story recount, procedural recounts, and critical recount (Barwick,
1999). A personal recount refers to retelling an individual or personal story that has been
experienced by the writer him/herself. It usually has personal and emotive sights and may
take the form of an oral story, a letter, or a diary. It is written using personal pronoun such
as ‘I’ and ‘we’ and covers ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, and sometimes ‘why’ that may
change the sequence. Another type of recount discussed is a factual recount. It documents a
series of events along with its personal significance evaluation, including the historical
recount, science experiment, and any report on television in the form of films or videos. In
this case, the factual recount should utilize appropriate formal language, and cover the detail
of time, place, and manner. This recount's focus is on utilizing language that shows time
sequences such as ‘before', ‘while', and ‘after; and evaluative languages such as importance,
significance, influence, and achievement. Similar to a personal recount and narrative text,
literary or story recount refers to telling a fictive personal experience. However, there is still
a minor difference showing that it is more inclined to the emphasis on the utilization of the
first person pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ and is told as if it could happen for real, such as ‘My diary
as a child in space’. Another type of recount is procedural recounts. It refers to recording
the sequential steps needed to achieve a result, in an oral or a written form. Procedural
recounts are found in information books, films, and books that explain how things are made.
The focus of this type of recount is on the accurate sequential order, the selection of the
correct language for the topic and the use of time conjunctions. And the last type of recount
is a critical recount. It looks at an issue and comments and evaluates negative and positive
aspects. In order to suit some arguments, selected details are included, yet this recount may
not be sequenced chronologically. It could be written in the first or the third person or may
be written in the passive form. For example, an exploration in Antarctica may critically
assess the damage caused to the environment and ecosystem by this exploration.
In terms of the generic structure of recount, Barwick (1999) mentioned that recount
should follow three stages, those are orientation, a sequence of events with personal and
evaluative comments, and re-orientation. The orientation depicts the background
information needed to fully understand the story retelling. It establishes the time, setting,
and who or what is participating. Subsequently, in the stage of a sequence of events, the
writer of the text should focus on detailing who, what, where, and when. During the process
of planning, the writer should first list all the events and number them in a sequence, and
include emotive and evaluative comments like ‘we were afraid’ or ‘I was frightened’ and so
forth. In this stage also, the writer may alter the sequence and use some story flashback. And
the last stage of writing recount is re-orientation. It rounds off the series of the events, in
which the writer can also utilize it as an introductory paragraph, referring to some of the
information in the stage of orientation.
To recognize the text as recount, it is essential to elaborate its language features. Those,
the ones proposed by Barwick (1999), are mentioned in the following table:

Language Features Examples

“Proper nouns and pronouns identifying “Mr. Lawrence, the postman, frog.”
people, animals, or things”
“Larger and more complex noun groups “The long distance runner, Lionel Drill.”
building up descriptions”
“Word families used to build topic “Smoke signals, drums, telephone,
information” television.”
“Varied action verbs used to build word “She jumped, she leaped, she crawled.”
chains. These may be synonyms, antonyms,
or repetitions”
 “Descriptive words adding details about “Last night in the Blue Crib restaurant, the
who, what, when, where, and how” irritated man angrily threw the broken plate
off the table.”
“Adverbs and adverbial phrases sequencing “In 1927, on the 6th of June 1824.”
events in time and indicating the place”
“The technical and abstract language used “The thorax, the abdomen, the beauty.”
to add credence to the text”
“Texts were written in past tense to retell “She smiled.”
past events”
“Conjunctions to combine clauses and “When, but, then, first, finally.”
connectives to sequence events”
“Quoted and reported speech” “’We are off on an excursion tomorrow'
said Mrs. Sheridan enthusiastically. Mrs.
Sheridan enthusiastically added that they
would be going on an excursion the next
day.”
“An evaluative language used in factual “Captain Arthur was a fair and just man,
and personal recounts” The trip was a wonderful experience.”
“Sentences should be structured with the “The last trip he ever made was..., In 1909,
focus on the important information at the they first entered”
beginning”
“The passive voice is used at times to allow “The shoes I first wore were produced by a
the writer to leave out the person doing the famous company”
action”
“Included significant events and excluded “She turned off the lights clandestinely,
irrelevant details” worrying that I would wake up.”

C. The Three Metafunctions

Interpersonal Metafunction

In order to establish and maintain appropriate personal and social links in interacting with
other people, it is essential to identify the grammar aspects that enable us to communicate by
means of language and to deal with lexicogrammatical systems that might get the hearers to
have a chance of understanding why we say something to them and to be in an appropriate
position in creating useful and elegant statements about the grammar. we need to identify
limited purposes as a basis between adressers (who deliver the message) and audiences
(message receivers). The most fundamental purposes in the communication meanings
exchange are giving (and taking) or demanding (and being given) a commodity of some kind.
The commodity that the speaker may be giving or demanding is information; the speaker makes
a statement and gives a piece of information; then the listener can understand the message gives
some response to it.

In addition, the additional or supplementary function is ‘helping’ the success of exchange.

It is therefore important to see the four basic speech roles as proposed by Thompson (1996);
those are giving information, demanding information, giving goods-&-services and demanding
goods-&-services. To make it clear, those will be exemplified in the figure below:

Commodity Exchanged (a) Goods-&-Services (b) Information

Role in Exchange
(i) Giving Offer Statement
I’ll show you the way We’re nearly there
(ii) Demanding Command Question
Give me your hand Is this the place

Mood

The mood is a particular element of the clause made up of a subject and finite. It is
important to note that mood in this context should be preceded with the lowercase. See the
following example:

‘They've all gone' ‘have they?

‘They' in that sentence is subject, and ‘have' which is basically an auxiliary verb is in this
context is Mood, having an important function in carrying out the interpersonal functions of
the clause as a giving and taking in English. Also, the finite in the sentence has two functions,
to express tense and express modality. Thus, the key function of the Finite is to accommodate
the listener towards the kind of validity which is being declared for the proposition.
 Residue

The residue is simply the remaining clause once the Mood has been established
(Thompson, 1996). Thompson (1996) elaborated three kinds of functional elements in the
Residue: the Predicator, Complements, and Adjuncts. The Predicator obviously expresses the
process – the action, happening, state, etc. – in which the Subject is involved in some way. It
also has a function to perform a secondary tense such as (the predictor is italicized) ‘I have
driven the cat away many times’. Whereas Complements, in the more traditional sense, does
include both Objects and Complements. Another component of Residue is defined as Adjuncts,
you might find clauses which are constructed by an adverbial group or a prepositional phrase.

Modality and Polarity

Finite expresses not only tense but also polarity and modality. Any Finite is inherently
positive or negative in polarity, which can be expressed through Mood Adjuncts such as ‘never’
or ‘hardly’. Whereas modality can be seen as constructing a kind of interpersonal ‘aura’ of the
speaker’s attitude around the proposition. It generally has two types, , and modulation.
Modalization refers to information which is classified into probability and usuality as written
in the following sentences:

‘The child might be hers’ (probability)

She often went there (usuality)

Another type of modality is a modulation. It refers to goods-&-services which is also

classified into obligation and inclination, as written in the following sentences:

‘You should go now’ (obligation)

‘I’ll give you a hand’ (inclination)

Appraisal

Appraisal or evaluation is a set of linguistics used and systematized by the speakers or

writers to negotiate evaluations with their addressers to construct solidarity around shared
values. The areas included in appraisal are Engagement, Graduation, and Attitude. Engagement
refers to how resources such as modality and projection are deployed in negotiating solidarity.
Whereas Graduation deals with the ways in which speakers and writers can intensify or weaken
their evaluations. The central are of appraisal is termed Attitude, it defines whether the speaker
thinks that something (a person, thing, action, event, situation, idea, etc.) is good or bad. An
appraisal is distinguished into three major categories: Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation.
Affect covers the expression of our emotional responses, like ‘We simply adore the silky soft
ruffle on the bust line’. Whereas Judgement (‘She is lovely’) and Appreciation (‘It is lovely’)
focus on the qualities of the appraised entity.

Ideational/Experiential Metafunction

Ideational/Experiential perspective in grammar is defined as the content meanings of

‘what/who did what to what/whom’. It, based on the experience, refers to how objects work
and connect to each other. To put it simply, this is all about language that reflects how we
outlook the ‘goings-on’ (verbs) involving things (nouns) that may have attributes (adjectives)
and which go on against background details of place, time, manner, etc. (adverbials). We can
label the ‘content of clauses in terms of participant, circumstance, and process, for example:

‘I (participant) intentionally (circumstance) kill (process) the mosquito (participant).

In some cases, the participant is not included in some sentences, like:

‘it’s raining’ ‘it’s freezing’.

Even though we have ‘it' as the subject, those sentences are indicated not to have the
participant (doer) and have no experiential meaning.

According to Thompson (1996) categories of transitivity are mentioned as follows:

Categories Definition The Acts Features

“Material “Physical Actions” “running, throwing, “Actor: The doer of any
Processes” scratching, cooking, sitting action
down, and so on.” Goal: to whom/which the
action is directed”
“Mental “The actions that perceptive(seeing, hearing, “Senser: the doer
Processes” go on in the etc.); Phenomenon: what is
internal world of emotive, or reactive sensed”
the mind” (processes of feeling);
cognitive (processes of
deciding, knowing,
 understanding, etc.); and
desiderative (a technical
term for ‘wanting’)”

“Relational “To signal the “Processing the relationship “Carrier, Attribute;

Processes” existence of a (is, felt, seems, etc)” Value, Token (what are
relationship related)
between an object Attributive; Identifier
and a quality” (Processes)”
“Verbal “‘Verbs’ of “Explaining, repeating, “Sayer, Receiver,
Processes” saying” telling, thinking, Criticizing, Target; Verbiage,
answering, reiterating, Matter, Projection”
swearing, shouting,
thanking, complaining, etc”
“Other Types “Relating to “Starring, giving, laughing, “Behaver, Behaviour,
of Processes specifically human etc. (Behavioural) Behavioural (Process)
(Behavioural physiological Existing (Existential)” Existent, Actor;
and processes Existential, Material
Existential (Behavioural) (Processes)”
processes” expressing the
mere existence of
an entity without
predicting
anything else of it
(Existential)”

Circumstances

Commonly, there are well-known categories of circumstances: time, place, and manner.
However, greater possible conditions may be applied to and agreed set of categories. Adverb
of place and time occurs to appear most as circumstance. It includes Location (where?) and
Extent (How long/often?). Another familiar category is manner. It includes Quality (in what
way?), Means (with what?/by what means?), Comparison (What... . like?), and Degree (How
much?).
Textual Metafunction

An organization of a text to create a meaningful and effective message is required so that a

text can be clear, consistent, and rational (Thompson, 2014). The first constituent is used to
imply the focus of the message by the speakers/ writer. In English, textual metafunction is
confined in the first constituent of a clause since it indicates the development of a text.

The first component to analyze and discuss textual metafunction is Theme and the rest of
the clause is Rheme. The theme as in Thompson (2014) is about what the message is related.
Simply put, the theme is the point of departure of what the speakers are probably going to talk
about.

There are three types of the theme: topical theme, textual theme, and interpersonal theme.
Topical Theme covers in which the experiences in the clause started (nominal group, verbal
group, adverbial group or prepositional phrase telling the first Participant, Process or
Circumstance slot that functions as topical Theme). Textual Theme relates the message to the
previous text such as conjunction (if, although, unless, because and in order), conjunctive
Adjunct (therefore, nevertheless, in addition, finally, and in conclusion). Lastly, interpersonal
Theme labels the types of interaction between speakers or positions.

There is also two status of Theme: marked and unmarked (Thompson, 1996). Marked is
signaled by an adjunct (Circumstances, Complement, Dependent clause, and Subject as Goal)
while unmarked is signaled by Subject, WH-, and predicator.

D. Brief Overview of Students’ Difficulties in Writing Recount Text

Since recount text exists in curriculum 2013, junior high and senior high school students
should be expected to have introduced and be familiar with recount text. In their level, they are
also expected to acquire a good understanding of writing a good recount text. Yet, students
might deal with various difficulties along the way.
Some studies conducted investigation towards students' recount text in the EFL context.
The study conducted by (Yunita, 2016) is one of the studies that had already seek to discover
students' difficulties in writing the text. She found that the students were lead to creating a text
where it focused on repeating the theme. Another study was conducted by (Nurohmah, 2013)
in which she found that the students were capable of handling the features of recount text that
are probably similar to (Yunita, 2016). However, she also discovered that the students might
have problems with grammatical structures; the use of tense, phrases, verbs, conjunction, and
so on. (Dewi and Kurniawan, 2018) had encountered that grammatical error appeared in
students' writing. The difficulties which are investigated mostly deal with the preposition,
noun, the adjective clause, comparison, pronoun, infinitive, the adverb of time, and passive
forms. Furthermore, the study discovered incorrect use of conjunction and punctuation.

(Barwick, 1999) (Nurohmah, 2013 in gerot and Wignel, 1995)