An Analysis of Textual Meaning on Students’ Writing of Recount Texts

Abstract

The topic of this study is the textual meaning on students‟ recount texts of the 4th semester students of English Department, Semarang State University in the Academic Year 2016/2017. The analyses intend to figure out what Thematic structures are displayed and what Thematic progressions are employed in the students‟ recount texts. The approach used in this study is qualitative descriptive method, and some quantitative approaches to enhance the depth of results. The units of analysis of this study were clauses in the 4th semester students‟ recount texts taken from Genre-Based Writing course. The results of the Thematic structures analysis show that unmarked topical Theme is the most frequently used rather than the marked one. Modal adjunct is the only constituent of interpersonal Theme that is found to show the writer‟s judgment. Moreover, structural and conjunctive adjunct are used in relating the clause to its context or another clause. In addition, there only one continuative found in the text to signal a new move is made. The study also shows that the students used re-iteration (constant) to make the text keep focused. Then, zigzag pattern is commonly used in relative clauses which replace subject. While multiple (split) pattern is used to introduce a number of different pieces of information which is made as Theme in subsequent clauses.

Keywords

• students’ recount texts
• textual meaning
• theme
• rheme
• thematic structure
• thematic progression