Beowulf went back to his country and became a king. He was king for fifty years. But one day, a dragon came to his
country, and it attacked people. It lived in a cave with treasure. The dragon was very big and breathed fire. The knights were
afraid and they did not want to fight the dragon. King Beowulf was an old man but he put on his armor again and killed to the
dragon.
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Taken from Opportunities Elementary, 2003
6. The Language Features of Narrative Text
There are several language features which are commonly found in the narrative text:
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Noun which identify characters and place in the story.
Time words that connect event, telling when they occurred.
Verbs that show the actions that occur in the story.
Adjectives that provide accurate descriptions of characters and settings.
In this following is the example of language features of narrative text which still connected with the story presented above:
Table 2.1 Language Features of Narrative Text
No Linguistic Features
Examples
1. Specific participants
Beowulf 2.
Generic Participants The king, Grendel and Grandels’ mother
15
Joko Priyana, et al., Interlanguage: English for Senior High School Students XI, Jakarta: Pusat Perbukuan, Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2008, p. 83.
16
Mark and Kathy Anderson, op. cit., p. 8.
Resolution
3. Past Tense
There was a horrible monster called
Grendel.
He lived in Denmark.
4.
He went to the Kings castle.
The monster came into the castle and killed a knight
5. Adverb of Time
Once upon a time, one day, when, next night, In the morning.
6. Adverb of Place
In Denmark, In the castle, In the lake, In a cave.
7. Coordinate
Conjunction And, but.
In the language features mentioned above frequently to be used in writing a narrative text by a narrator. It always involves a character or the number of
characters in every story. Similarly, in the story of the legend of Beowulf above, the specific character is Bewoulf. Moreover, it uses time word in that story, for
example, “Once upon a time…” And also the last two elements of language feature. Furthermore, language features are served to make students easier in
understanding a story in a text. By the use of past tense, it helps students to characterize the type of narrative text itself, so they can differentiate a narrative
text from other text types and the readers will know what happened in the story. However, conjunction is also really important to elaborate the characters and
setting of that story. To sum up, language features have a significant role in a text due to it may be
helpful for the readers to get a meaning from a story. Meanwhile, the use of past tense pattern in narrative text can tell to the reader about the major feature of a
story used. And conjunction is really needed to support the story in term of describing characters and settings. As the writers construct a text, they have to
