Pengertian Descriptive Text
Dalam artian
luas, Description, seperti dijelaskan oleh Kane (2000: 352), diartikan seperti
pada kalimat di bawah ini :
Description is about sensory experience—how something
looks, sounds, tastes. Mostly it is about visual experience, but description
also deals with other kinds of perception.
Jadi, jika disimpulkan dari penjelasan Kane di atas, tulisan deskriptif bermakna teks yang menjelaskan tentang pengalaman yang berhubungan dengan pancaindera, seperti apa bentuknya, suaranya, rasanya. Kebanyakan teks deskriptif memang tentang pengalaman visual, tapi nyatanya pengalaman selain dari indera penglihatanpun bisa digunakan dalam descriptive text.
Namun secara khusus, descriptive text adalah,
"...... is a text which says what a person or a thing is like. Its purpose
is to describe and reveal a particular person, place, or thing." [teks
yang menjelaskan gambaran seseorang atau benda. Tujuannya adalah mengambarkan
atau mengungkapkan orang, tempat atau benda tertentu]
Jadi, bisa dikatakan bahwa descriptive text ini adalah teks yang menjelaskan tentang seperti apakah orang atau suatu benda dideskripsikan, baik bentuknya, sifat-sifatnya, jumlahnya dan lain-lain. Tujuan (purpose) dari descriptive text pun jelas, yaitu untuk menjelaskan, MENGGAMBARKAN atau mengungkapkan seseorang atau suatu benda.
Jadi, bisa dikatakan bahwa descriptive text ini adalah teks yang menjelaskan tentang seperti apakah orang atau suatu benda dideskripsikan, baik bentuknya, sifat-sifatnya, jumlahnya dan lain-lain. Tujuan (purpose) dari descriptive text pun jelas, yaitu untuk menjelaskan, MENGGAMBARKAN atau mengungkapkan seseorang atau suatu benda.
Ketika menulis descriptive text, ada beberapa susunan
umum / generic structure (sebenarnya tidak wajib) agar
tulisan kita dianggap benar. Susunan tersebut adalah :
- Identification : berisi tentang identifikasi hal / seorang yang akan dideskripsikan.
- Description : berisi tentang penjelasan / penggambaran tentang hal / seseorang dengan menyebutkan beberapa sifatnya.
Ketika kita menulis descriptive text, hal yang wajib
kita ketahui adalah cara kita menyampaikan deskripsi tulisan kita tersebut.
Oleh karena itu pemahaman tentang adjective (kata sifat bahasa Inggris) wajib
kita kuasai.
Selain adjective, beberapa struktur bahasa Inggris
yang berfungsi sebagai adjective pun harus kita pahami agar penulisan
descriptive text kita terlihat tidak kaku.
Contoh Descriptive Text
Banyak sekali contoh descriptive text yang tersebar di
dunia maya. Cara mudah mendapatkan contoh descriptive text dalam sebuah situs
yaitu dengan melihat about us sebuah situs. Mengapa demikian, karena
suatu situs biasanya terdapat penjelasan atau gambaran tentang keberadaan
mereka dalam dunia maya.
Oke, mari kita lihat contoh descriptive text yang
belum pernah anda baca (mungkin) :
My mother is a beautiful person. She is not tall but
not short, and she has curly hair and brown. Her eyes color are like honey and
her color skin color light brown, and she has a beautiful smile. Her weight
likes 120 lbs.
She is a very kind person. She is very lovely, friendly, patient, and she loves to help people. I love my mom, because she is a good example to me. She loves being in the Church, and she loves sing and dance too.
She is a very good child, wife and mother. She always takes care of her family. She likes her house to be clean and organized. She a very organized person, and all things in the house are in the right place. She doesn't like messes.
She always has a smile on her face. She is so sweet and lovely. I like when I am going to sleep or went I wake up or when I am going to go to some places, she always give me a kiss, and when the family have a problem she always be with us to helps us and to give us all her love.
She is a very kind person. She is very lovely, friendly, patient, and she loves to help people. I love my mom, because she is a good example to me. She loves being in the Church, and she loves sing and dance too.
She is a very good child, wife and mother. She always takes care of her family. She likes her house to be clean and organized. She a very organized person, and all things in the house are in the right place. She doesn't like messes.
She always has a smile on her face. She is so sweet and lovely. I like when I am going to sleep or went I wake up or when I am going to go to some places, she always give me a kiss, and when the family have a problem she always be with us to helps us and to give us all her love.
Yuta is one of the 150 International students at the
ELC of Brigham Young University. He is from Japan. He grew up in Japan, and he
is 19 years old. There are six people in his family, a father, a mother, three
sisters and himself. He is the youngest in his family. He is also the only boy
in his family, but now he is in Provo, Utah, studying English. Yuta likes the
United States very much and he thinks everything is cheap. Yuta thinks his
English classes are excellent and the teachers are professionals. Yuta thinks
someone in his class is noisy so he doesn't like that. In his free time he
spends too much time sleeping, so it seems that he has a sleeping sickness.
I have been in Provo for almost eleven months. I have seen winter, spring, summer, and fall. Provo's winter is so beautiful. The mountains are covered with a lot of snow. They look like many beautiful brides wearing wedding dresses, and veils. In spring, Provo doesn't have many trees; when the snow melts the mountains are bald as strong bald men. Summer in Provo is very hot in the daytime. Last summer when I was walking under the sky, it was like walking in an oven; the sun was like a fire that burned my skin. In spring and summer the weather was always clear. I never used my umbrella. Provo was like a huge clothes dryer; it is very dry in spring and summer. In the fall the weather in Provo is very strange. One late September morning when I woke up, the mountaintops was covered with snow. Provo is a lovely and strange place. I love it very much.
Contoh Descriptive Text tentang Gitar
My most valuable possession is an old, slightly warped blond guitar--the first instrument I taught myself how to play.
It's nothing fancy, just a Madeira folk guitar, all scuffed and scratched and finger-printed. At the top is a bramble of copper-wound strings, each one hooked through the eye of a silver tuning key. The strings are stretched down a long, slim neck, its frets tarnished, the wood worn by years of fingers pressing chords and picking notes. The body of the Madeira is shaped like an enormous yellow pear, one that was slightly damaged in shipping. The blond wood has been chipped and gouged to gray, particularly where the pick guard fell off years ago.
No, it's not a beautiful instrument, but it still lets me make music, and for that I will always treasure it.