A descriptive text is a text which lists the characteristics of something. Take an example, the following is one of the text belongs to the descriptive text.
We get the purpose from the text above that description is used in all forms of writing to create a vivid impression of a person, place, object or event e.g. to: ·
- Describe a special place and explain why it is special.
- Describe the most important person in your live.
- Describe the animal’s habit in your report.
Descriptive writing or text is usually also used to help writer develop an aspect of their work, e.g. to create a particular mood, atmosphere or describe a place so that the reader can create vivid pictures of characters, places, objects etc. To complete our intention to, here are the characteristics based on descriptive writing or text, below;
As a feature, description is a style of writing which can be useful for other variety of purposes as:
- To engage a reader’s attention
- To create characters
- To set a mood or create an atmosphere
- To being writing to life
While in language function, descriptive writing;
- Aims to show rather than tell the reader what something/someone is like
- Relies on precisely chosen vocabulary with carefully chosen adjectives and adverbs.
- Is focused and concentrates only on the aspects that add something to the main purpose of the description.
- Sensory description-what is heard, seen, smelt, felt, tasted.Precise use of adjectives, similes, metaphors to create images/pictures in the mind e.g. their noses were met with the acrid smell of rotting flesh.
- Strong development of the experience that “put the reader there” focuses on key details, powerful verbs and precise nouns.
Beyond the characteristics stated on, descriptive writing also consists of generic structure in range as:
- General statement
- Explanation
- Closing
The description text has dominant language features as follows:
- Using Simple Present Tense
- Using action verbs
- Using passive voice
- Using noun phrase
- Using adverbial phrase
- Using technical terms
- Using general and abstract noun
- Using conjunction of time and cause-effect. NarrativeA narrative is a story that is created in a constructive format (as a work of speech, writing, song, film, television, video games, photography or theatre) that describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled".[1] Ultimately its origin is found in the Proto-Indo-European root gnō-, "to know".[2]The word "story" may be used as a synonym of "narrative", but can also be used to refer to the sequence of events described in a narrative. A narrative can also be told by a character within a larger narrative. An important part of narration is the narrative mode, the set of methods used to communicate the narrative through a process narration.Along with exposition, argumentation and description, narration, broadly defined, is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. More narrowly defined, it is the fiction-writing mode whereby the narrator communicates directly to the reader.Stories are an important aspect of culture. Many works of art and most works of literature tell stories; indeed, most of the humanities involve stories. Owen Flanagan of Duke University, a leading consciousness researcher, writes that “Evidence strongly suggests that humans in all cultures come to cast their own identity in some sort of narrative form. We are inveterate storytellers” (Consciousness Reconsidered 198).Example :Queen of Arabia and Three SheiksMaura, who like to be thought of as the most beautiful and powerful queen of Arabia, had many suitors. One by one she discarded them, until her list was reduced to just three sheiks. The three sheiks were all equally young and handsome. They were also rich and strong. It was very hard to decide who would be the best of them.
One evening, Maura disguised herself and went to the camp of the three sheiks. As they were about to have dinner, Maura asked them for something to eat. The first gave her some left over food. The second Sheik gave her some unappetizing camel’s tail. The third sheik, who was called Hakim, offered her some of the most tender and tasty meat. After dinner, the disguised queen left the sheik’s camp.
The following day, the queen invited the three sheiks to dinner at her palace. She ordered her servant to give each one exactly what they had given her the evening before. Hakim, who received a plate of delicious meat, refused to eat it if the other two sheiks could not share it with him.
This Sheik Hakim’s act finally convinced Queen Maura that he was the man for her. “Without question, Hakim is the most generous of you” she announced her choice to the sheiks. “So it is Hakim I will marry”.
