\ The narrative text titled “The Man and the Bees” applies the generic structure,
which comprises orientation, complications and resolutions. “The Man and the Bees” also has the vocabulary that is relevant to the subject matter i.e. the man,
the wife, weak, work, honey, bees, run, buzzed after, stinging, dived, river, etc.. The past tense sentences are also used in the story. “The Man and the Bees” also
uses time transitions like ‘after many hours’, ‘then’, and ‘at last’. Adjectives are also applied, for example ‘heavy’ and ‘weak’ to describe the character of the man
in the story.
3. A Brief Review of Errors
A distinction is sometimes made between an error, which results from incomplete knowledge, and a mistake made by learner when writing Richards, et
al, 1985: 95. Gass and Selinker 1994: 67 tell that an error is, as they cited from Corder 1967, “likely to occur repeatedly and is not recognized by the learner as
an error.” Gass and Selinker also mention that an error is different from a mistake. A mistake is a kind of slip of the tongue which is recognizable. The learner doing
a mistake can correct his mistake if necessary, but when he does an error, he will not even realize that he does an error. Only teachers and researchers realize the
errors. Mistakes are only one-time-only events while errors are systematic. In this study, the writer does not distinct error and mistake. She uses the term “error” to
refer to both mistake and error. Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners
2001: 520 defines an error as “something you have done which is considered to be incorrect
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\ or wrong, or which should not have been done.” It is clear that errors are
something incorrect. As this study focuses on textual features of a narrative text, what are meant by errors are incorrect textual features. These errors could be
errors in applying generic structure orientation, complication, resolution and linguistic features vocabulary, past tense, adjectives, time transition.
Furthermore, Dulay et al. 1982: 138 suggest that errors “are the flawed side of learner speech or writing. They are those parts of a conversation or a
composition that deviate from selected norm of mature language performance.” It means that a student’s text that deviates from the correct norm is considered
erroneous. As this study focuses on textual features, the correct norm is the presence of all correct textual features. It means that the correct norm is the
presence of all correct generic structure orientation, complication, resolution and linguistic features vocabulary, past tense, adjectives, transition of a narrative
text. To sum up, in this study, errors refer to the student’s incomplete generic structure and linguistic features andor to the student’s incorrect generic structure
and linguistic features in developing a narrative text. Teachers and researchers have studied learners’ errors for a long time.
Studying learners’ errors actually has two major purposes which are: 1 it provides data from which interferences about the nature of the
language learning process can be made; and 2 it indicates to teachers and curriculum developers which part of the target language students have
most difficulty producing correctly and which errors types detract most from learner’s ability to communicate effectively Dulay et al, 1982: 138
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\ Errors also can be the basis of constructing theory and planning classroom
practice Dulay et al., 1982: 140. Thus, a teacher can do something useful with errors to keep the students’ texts to the correct norm of the text.
4. Sources of Errors
