ENGLISH HOME LANGUAGE PAPER 1
GRADE 12
NATIONAL SENIOR CERTIFICATE
SEPTEMBER 2018

INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION

1. This question paper consists of THREE sections:
   SECTION A: Comprehension (30)
   SECTION B: Summary (10)
   SECTION C: Language Structures and Conventions (30)
2. Read ALL the instructions carefully.
3. Answer ALL the questions.
4. Start EACH section on a NEW page.
5. Rule off after each section.
6. Number the answers correctly according to the numbering system used in this question paper.
7. Leave a line after each answer.
8. Pay special attention to spelling and sentence construction.
9. Suggested time allocation:
   SECTION A: 50 minutes
   SECTION B: 30 minutes
   SECTION C: 40 minutes
10. Write neatly and legibly.

SECTION A: COMPREHENSION
QUESTION 1: READING FOR MEANING AND UNDERSTANDING
Read TEXTS A and B and answer the questions set.

TEXT A
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN: HOW THE HUGH JACKMAN MUSICAL
BECAME AN UNLIKELY HIT
It runs counter to box-office trends, it’s hokey1 and old-school, but somehow this all-singing, all-dancing spectacle keeps winning over audiences.

1. Take a bona fide Broadway star, put her in a stodgy ahistorical musical, with a credible co-star gamely slumming it in a secondary role, and what do you get? The Sound of Music, Funny Girl, or indeed The Greatest Showman, whose stealth success at the box office since it opened five weeks ago has quietly become the biggest film story of the new year.
2. The Greatest Showman’s success is not just surprising: it’s bordering on miraculous. The film’s audience has grown week on week, after inauspicious beginnings, to an extent not seen since Titanic or Chicago. This goes against all received wisdom, and runs blithely counter to all current box-office trends. The movie is an original, unfranchisable story with little or no built-in audience, no superheroes, and is a gosh-darn-it musical. Why this not-especially-good film? Why now?
3. First of all, the way The Greatest Showman has built its audience, gradually, shows that word of mouth has played a key role. What’s interesting, and sort of charming, is that it is likely that Showman is drawing in not only new audiences curious to see what all the fuss is about, but repeat viewers who don’t care about the film’s formal problems and who are – presumably – turning up for the hits and the kitsch factor. The film has both in spades: ‘Never Enough’, ‘This Is Me’ or ‘Rewrite the Stars’ would all win the Eurovision Song Contest, and the film’s turgid story of self-actualisation dips into schmaltz just about every other minute. That tone is crucial – the film offers entertainment, but in an easy-going Dirty Dancing kind of way. It’s never too sassy, smart, or even particularly camp, making its pleasures relatable and comforting.
4. It isn’t hard to see how the film’s feel-good factor can give audiences a much-needed sense of escape or respite. You could plausibly go further and suggest that the way the film reinvents P.T. Barnum – by all accounts a nasty, racist piece of work who exploited his workers without any qualms – as a beaming champion of minorities and misfits, might chime with viewers who wish to see good in men, and find precious little of it around in today’s #MeToo landscape. The Greatest Showman offers a hagiographic2 narrative of financial success, individual self-assertion and togetherness, merrily papering over such small
5. Also, while Showman is often ropy3 in its execution, little of its making has been left down to chance. Its main cast ranges in age from 22 to 49, drawing on Instagram royalty (Zandaya) and old-school stardom (Jackman). The film is an old-time musical built on classical lines, but it also pays lip service in its music to current trends. Its slick power-pop soundtrack has found its way to the top of the charts in the US.
6. Perhaps the film’s success shouldn’t be surprising. Like The Sound of Music and Funny Girl, it’s built on a tried and tested formula that, admittedly, hasn’t been used in a while, but reliably hit payola for studios for years and years. Even, more recently, the successes of Frozen, Empire and Hamilton show that there’s a potentially huge audience for musicals, which was going untapped in cinema. The film is testament, in almost every aspect, to old-fashioned values working well, right down to Jackman’s star power in getting the project off the ground and giving it his promotional firepower. It’s a crafty piece of meshing of his image with the film’s brand that fully pays off.
7. Finally, the film – though hokey and trite at its core – offers a genuine rush of spectacle and wonder, which still counts for something on a big screen, perhaps more so in an era of standardised CGI4. Where audiences used to marvel at Fred and Ginger hotfooting it on a shiny dancefloor, we get to watch Zendaya whoosh around a circus on a trapeze. To quote the film, ‘It’s fire, it’s freedom, it’s flooding open’.

GLOSSARY:
1 hokey: overly sentimental 2 hagiographic: biography that puts the subject in a very flattering, saint-like light
3 ropy: not meeting an acceptable standard 4CGI: special visual effects created using computer software
AND

TEXT B

QUESTIONS: TEXT A
1.1 Refer to the lead (lines 1–3).
1.1.1 Give TWO reasons why The Greatest Showman is so popular among audiences. (2)
1.1.2 The Oxford Dictionary defines a spectacle as ‘a visually striking performance or display’. With close reference to these lines, explain why the writer of the article would call The Greatest Showman a ‘spectacle’ (line 2). (2)
1.2 Refer to paragraph 1.
1.2.1 What is the writer’s opinion of The Greatest Showman? Quote ONE word to prove your answer. (2)
1.2.2 The word ‘stealth’ (line 7) indicates that the success of this film is …

1. expected.
2. surreptitious.
3. unremarkable.
4. hidden. (1)

Related Items

1.3 Refer to paragraph 2.
Say whether the following statement is TRUE or FALSE and quote THREE consecutive words to substantiate your answer.
The Greatest Showman has been a roaring success since the night of the premiere. (2)
1.4 Identify and discuss the style the writer uses in paragraph 3. Quote a phrase to substantiate your answer. (3)
1.5 Explain the juxtaposition of contradictory viewpoints in paragraph 4 which, it is claimed, has led to the popularity of The Greatest Showman. (3)
1.6 What does the writer mean when he says that ‘little of its making has been left down to chance’? (lines 38–39) (2)
1.7 Refer to paragraph 6. 1.7.1
What is the ‘tried and tested formula’ (line 45) which ensured that the film was a success? (2)
1.7.2 Why has Hugh Jackman been chosen for the lead role? (2)
1.8 Explain how the writer’s tone changes in paragraph 7 from his tone in paragraph 1. (2)

QUESTIONS: TEXT B
1.9 In the summary of Box Office earnings (Total Lifetime Grosses) of The Greatest Showman, study the totals next to the words ‘Domestic’ and ‘Foreign’. What is your conclusion after studying these totals? (2)
1.10 Why is this conclusion (in QUESTION 1.9) an obvious one? (1)

QUESTION: TEXTS A AND B
1.11 Would you need to read TEXT A or TEXT B if you want to determine the explanation for the run-away success of The Greatest Showman? Justify your response with close reference to both TEXT A and TEXT B. (4)
TOTAL SECTION A: 30

SECTION B: SUMMARY
QUESTION 2: SUMMARISING IN YOUR OWN WORDS
You have been asked by the editor of the school newspaper to write an article about the reasons for the popularity of musicals. You found the following article (TEXT C) during your research on the internet. Use the contents of the article in TEXT C to write the article IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
NOTE:

1. Your article should include SEVEN points and NOT exceed 90 words.
2. You must write a fluent paragraph.
3. You are NOT required to include a title for the summary.
4. Indicate your word count at the end of your summary.

TEXT C
PEOPLE LOVE MUSICALS – AND HERE’S WHY
Josh Friedman, Managing Director of the Hangar Theatre, told me that musicals were more popular than non-musical plays. Plays generally ran for  performances and musicals for. He suggested, ‘People’s first theatrical experiences are musicals in school or church.’
Friedman suggested that musicals have more advertising around them. ‘Broadway is usually musicals, and the Broadway advertising machine is huge.’ Those productions were profit-based and heavily marketed.
Friedman said, ‘Musicals are fun entertainment. People want to be entertained. Musicals have happy endings and often offer escapism. Fantasy is part of it.’
Bert Smock, Artistic Director of the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, sent a long and thoughtful email. ‘Musical theatre is difficult to define and compartmentalise. I think it’s fair to say that music can significantly enhance a moment onstage in a way that cannot be duplicated. It can dramatise a moment or provide complete contextual comedy to another. When put to lyrics, music has the ability to be entirely transporting – in a singular way – which a non-musical play cannot. Music is, after all, a universal language.’
‘Dance, as an art form, and a means of expression is similarly intangible but, when used to capture a feeling or a dramatic moment, stands alone in its ability to convey expression or evoke emotion. And while the spoken word of itself is theatre (drama or comedy), without the accompanying underscore and movement, a musical is not made. Each component must be recognised as having power and content. When combined with one another like parts of a recipe, the delicate blend ideally is defining and transporting.’
TOTAL SECTION B: 10

SECTION C: LANGUAGE STRUCTURES AND CONVENTIONS
QUESTION 3: ANALYSING ADVERTISING
Study the following advertisements (TEXTS D and E) below and answer the set questions.
TEXT D

3.1 Critically discuss the combination of traditional and modern in the image and the copy of this advertisement. (2)

TEXT E

The text in small font reads as follows:

3D AS YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE: WITHOUT GLASSES. NEW LG OPTIMUS 3D. The only one with two cameras for capture 3D photos and videos and a 4.3-inch screen. The first 3D smartphone is a LG.

QUESTIONS: TEXT E
3.2 ‘WITHOUT GLASSES.’
This is an incomplete sentence. State the advertiser’s purpose in using this grammatically incorrect sentence structure. (2)
3.3 Study the logo and slogan of this company.
Critically comment on the effectiveness of these. (3)
3.4 Explain how the image suits the theme of the advertisement. (3)
[10]

QUESTION 4: UNDERSTANDING OTHER ASPECTS OF THE MEDIA
Study TEXTS F and G and answer the set questions.
TEXT F: CARTOON

QUESTIONS: TEXT F
4.1 ‘AFTER 146 YEARS, IT’S OVER …’
Identify the tone indicated by the ellipsis after the elephant’s words. (1)
4.2 Discuss how the expressions on the faces of the elephant and the clowns and the body language of the clowns reinforce the message of the cartoon. (3)
4.3 Explain the satire in this cartoon. (3)

TEXT G

QUESTION: TEXT G
4.4 Identify the literary device used in the cartoon and explain how it creates humour. (3)
[10]

QUESTION 5: USING LANGUAGE CORRECTLY
Read TEXT H, which contains some deliberate errors, and answer the set questions.
TEXT H
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN: THE TRUE STORY OF P.T. BARNUM AND JENNY LIND
1 According to the Hugh Jackman musical, the circus proprietor almost fell for the ‘Swedish nightingale’ – but the real story is a lot more complicated.
2 On September 1 in 1850, 30 000 onlookers packed the waterfront in New York City, clamoring to catch a glimpse of the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind as she disembarked from the steamship Atlantic to begin an American tour. Lind’s American promoter, the visionary entertainer and entrepreneur P.T. Barnum, greeted the singer with a bouquet and waved her into a private carriage.
3 The Jenny Lind tour was a barnstormer, taking in the modern equivalent of $21 million over a nine-month engagement.
4 But more than Lind’s fame or Barnum’s marketing success, the story that has persisted most through the decades is the did-they-or-didn’t-they frisson of a suspected romance between the entertainer and his star attraction. Certainly the new Hugh Jackman film The Greatest Showman, a highly fictionalised musical biopic starring Rebecca Ferguson as Lind, subscribes to the idea of an infatuation between the showman and the singer.
5 Fictionalised versions of Barnum’s life has often relied on the tension of a man torn between his steady, Puritan wife and an exotic European songstress. The love triangle is, however attractive, a fiction.
6 From unassuming origins, Jenny Lind became the darling of European opera. Born out of wedlock and into a dismal childhood, the Royal Theatre in Stockholm admitted Jenny as a voice student at the age of nine, and by her tween years she was a renowned professional singer.

QUESTIONS: TEXT H
5.1 ‘… the circus proprietor almost fell for the ‘Swedish nightingale’…’
(paragraph 1).
Account for the use of the inverted commas in ‘Swedish nightingale’. (1)
5.2 Identify and correct the spelling error in paragraph 2. (1)
5.3 In the first sentence of paragraph 2 a punctuation error occurs. Rewrite the sentence, correcting the error. (1)
5.4 ‘… that has persisted most through the decades is the did-they-or-didn’t-they frisson’ (paragraph 4).
What is the function of the hyphens in this sentence? (1)
5.5
5.5.1 Write down a neologism from paragraph 4. (1)
5.5.2 Explain the neologism you have identified in QUESTION 5.5.1. (1)
5.6 Correct the concord error in paragraph 5. (1)
5.7 Rewrite the first sentence of paragraph 6 in reported speech. Begin with: The writer said … (1)
5.8 A grammar error appears in the second sentence of paragraph 6. Rewrite the sentence correctly. (1)
5.9 ‘… and by her tween years was a renowned professional singer.’
(paragraph 6)
Explain the meaning of the underlined word. (1)
[10]

TOTAL SECTION C: 30
GRAND TOTAL: 70