If you live in a household like mine — one with a nonverbal child — you’re anticipating one television show above all others this fall: “Speechless,” which begins Sept. 21 on ABC. A prime-time series on a major network about “us”? It’s occasion for excitement, and for reflection. What, exactly, do we who live in the “Speechless” universe hope this series will accomplish?

“Speechless” is a classic domestic comedy — yes, a comedy — centered on a 16-year-old named JJ DiMeo who has cerebral palsy, can’t speak and uses an alternative-communication device to express himself. He’s the eldest of three children, and he’s played by Micah Fowler, who has cerebral palsy, a casting decision that alone makes this series stand out.

如果你生活在像我這樣的家庭，1個有無法言語孩子的家庭，今年秋天在眾多電視節目中，你會特別期待名為「無言有愛」（暫譯）的這部，它於9月21日在美國廣播公司上檔。1部黃金時段的連續劇，在1個主要電視網上演，演的又是「我們」？此際令人興奮也適合省思。活在「無言有愛」宇宙中的我們冀望於這部連續劇的，究竟是什麼？

「無言有愛」是部傳統家庭喜劇，沒錯，它是部喜劇，主角是16歲男孩JJ迪米歐，患有腦性麻痺，無法言語，使用替代性溝通裝置表達意思。他是3個孩子中的老大，由罹患腦性麻痺的米卡佛勒飾演，光是如此選角就讓此劇與眾不同。

Minnie Driver portrays his mother, Maya, who like a lot of parents of children with disabilities sometimes turns into a wild-eyed, not-always-rational warrior for her son. JJ has two siblings (Mason Cook and Kyla Kenedy) whose own needs tend to get overlooked, a common thing in such households. John Ross Bowie plays the father, Jimmy, who struggles to keep Maya from sailing off the edge.

When ABC picked up this show last spring, word spread quickly through the chat rooms and Facebook pages where nonverbal people and their parents hang out. The YouTube trailer has had about 1.5 million views. I watched the pilot episode over the summer at Camp Communicate in Maine, which is for children who use alternative-communication devices. Staff members and campers watching with me agreed: Whoever’s behind this show “gets it.”

There’s a reason for that: The show’s creator, Scott Silveri, grew up in a home much like the one in “Speechless,” with a nonverbal brother with cerebral palsy and other health issues.

蜜妮德萊佛飾演母親瑪雅，和很多有殘疾子女的父母一樣，為了兒子，有時她會變成怒目而視、不總是很理性的戰士。JJ有兩個弟妹（由梅森庫克、凱拉甘迺迪分飾），兩人的需求往往遭到忽視，這也是這種家庭常見的事。約翰羅斯鮑伊飾演父親吉米，忙著幫瑪雅踩煞車。

美國廣播公司去年春天選定這個節目，消息很快便在這些無法言語的人、以及他們的父母經常掛在上面的一些聊天室和臉書網頁傳開。YouTube上的預告片約已有150萬人次點閱。我今夏在緬因州專為使用替代性溝通裝置的兒童設置的溝通營，看過一集試播。和我一起觀賞的營會工作人員和與會者都同意：無論節目的幕後是何人，此君「很懂箇中滋味」。

其中自有原因︰該劇的創作人史考特．席維里生長在一個和「無言有愛」很類似的家庭，他有個有腦性痲痺和其他健康問題的兄弟。

“It’s a story that I’ve been wanting to tell as long as I’ve been writing,” said Silveri, who has written and been a producer for “Friends” and other shows. “Not so much focused on doing a story about disability; I was really interested in doing a family show and exploring how one family member with a disability affects everybody else and turns them into the specific kind of weirdos that they become.”

It is largely unexplored territory. For decades, enduring TV characters with a disability were rare. Name one from the medium’s first 50 years. “Ironside,” says practically everyone. Name five more? Not so easy.

席維里也是 「六人行」等節目劇本作者兼製作人。他說：「這是個打從我開始寫作以來，就一直想要寫的故事。不完全聚焦在敘述一個關乎殘疾的故事；我對製作家庭劇，以及探討家裡一個殘障成員如何影響所有其他人，最後還把他們變成某種怪物真的很感興趣。」

這是一個大抵仍有待探索的領域。數十年來，身障者變成長青電視劇角色的例子屈指可數。從電視的頭50年裡找個例子吧。幾乎每人都回答：「輪椅神探。」5個呢？好像不容易。

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文／王麗娟

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美國廣播公司（ABC）的新電視連續劇（TV series）「Speechless」（無言有愛，暫譯）是部情境喜劇（sitcom），sitcom是situation comedy的結合字，指的是由數個主角，演出有趣、幽默的情境，且通常是發生於日常生活（day-to-day life）的境遇。

「Speechless」和以往情境喜劇的不同，在於主角是個身心障礙的小孩，這在電視劇中極其少見。現今英文已少用handicapped（殘障的）和crippled（跛腳的），因為有歧視之嫌，而多使用disabled或disability（身心障礙）。本文也以children with disabilities（身心障礙兒童）和 TV characters with a disability（身心障礙的電視角色）介紹，以示尊重。

Offshore Wind Farms See Promise in Platforms That Float

The sun was beating down on the leafy campus of the University of Maine one afternoon last month. But inside a hangarlike laboratory, a miniature hurricane was raging.

Storm-force gales swept over a deep pool of water, churning waves that, at full scale on the ocean, would have been twice the size of those recorded during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Happily for the researchers, the equipment they were testing, a novel type of floating platform meant to support a wind turbine in open water, remained upright through the maelstrom.

上個月某一天的下午，烈日直射在樹木蔥鬱的緬因大學校園，但在一間宛如飛機機棚的實驗室裡，卻有個迷你型颶風在咆哮。

暴風級的強風吹過一座深水池，掀起波浪，在真正的大海上，這樣的浪頭要比2012年珊蒂颶風期間所記錄的還高出一倍。

令研究人員感到高興的是，他們正在測試的一種在開放海域上支撐風力發電機的新型浮動式平台，在大漩渦中依然屹立未倒。

True, it was only one fifty-second of the real-world scale. But it was a success as one of many experiments and projects underway worldwide in a similar quest. As clean-energy engineers seek to make offshore wind farms more financially, aesthetically and environmentally viable, they are turning to floating supports to enable wind turbines to move into deeper waters farther from the coast.

Right now, almost all offshore wind turbines require fixed platforms built into the seafloor. Floating turbines, with anchors, would mean new flexibility in where wind farms could be placed, with potentially less impact on marine life — and less opposition from the human neighbors on shore.

事實上，實驗規模只是真實世界的52分之一。為追求同樣目標，世界各地有許多實驗與計畫正在進行，而前述結果算是一種成就。由於清潔能源工程師要讓海上風力發電場在財務、美感及環境層面上更可行，他們正轉往浮動式支撐物，以使風力發電機能進駐距離海岸更遠的更深水域。

目前，幾乎所有海上風力發電機都需要安裝於固定在海底的平台上。而有錨的浮動式風力機則意味著，風力發電場的場址選擇變得更有彈性，對海洋生物的潛在影響較少，岸上人類鄰居的反對聲浪也會較小。

“Look,” exclaimed Habib Joseph Dagher, executive director of the university’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center here, pointing to a minuscule figure perched on the bobbing deck. “The water is just reaching his feet.” The Lilliputian plastic platform worker had weathered the storm.

The University of Maine testing is part of an elaborate physics experiment meant to simulate conditions that full-scale floating wind turbines could face at an installation being planned about 10 miles off the Maine coast in up to 360 feet of water near tiny Monhegan Island.

緬因大學高級結構與複合材料中心執行主任哈比．約瑟夫．達格，指著一個浮動甲板上的小塑像喊道：「看！水面剛剛到達他腳的位置。」小塑膠平台上的工人安全度過了風暴。

緬因大學的測試是一項複雜物理實驗的一部分，該實驗意在模擬實際大小的漂浮式風力機可能面臨的情形。風力機計畫安裝在緬因州海岸外約10英里、孟希根島附近水深360英尺的海域。

For nearly 18 months in 2013 and 2014, an operating version of the apparatus — one-eighth of scale — sat in the waters off Castine, Maine, sending electricity to the grid. That proved the technology fundamentally worked and guided refinements to the design. Now, Dagher’s team is using the data collected at the lab to confirm the final form, a crucial next step in bringing the technology to market.

在2013年與2014年裡，這個裝置一具1/8比例的實際操作版本，在緬因州卡斯廷鎮岸外待了將近18個月，向電網發送電力。這證明了該技術基本上行得通，並為設計的改進提供了指引。現在，達格博士的團隊正利用實驗室所收集的數據來確認最終形式，而這是把該技術推上市場關鍵性的下一步。

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文／張佑生

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本文介紹離岸（又稱海上）風力發電（offshore wind farms）的最新發展。作者用了三個形容「微小」的字，值得一談。

第一個是導言中的miniature，只能放在名詞前面，通常形容某物的迷你版。例：It looks like a miniature version of James Bond's car.或They expect their children to behave like miniature adults.（小大人）。

第二個是minuscule，形容極小（例：minuscule sculptures）或微不足道。例：The risk to public health is minuscule.這個字還有字母書寫體小寫的意思。

同樣形容微小，Lilliputian源自史威夫特（Jonathan Swift）的諷刺小說《格列佛遊記》（Gulliver’s Travels），第一卷介紹的小人國厘厘普特（Lilliput），國民就是Lilliputian，只有15公分高，也可以當形容詞。

與miniature和minuscule不同，Lilliputian還可以指胸襟狹隘（lilliputian minds）的人，真的是「小人」了！狄更斯、夏綠蒂．勃朗特、巴爾札克都用過這個字，向前輩致敬。