I love Star
Trek. Original Series with its camp, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and
even Voyager and Enterprise had their high spots. Love them. I’m very much
looking forward to the new movie. I’ve even heard there are rumors of a new
series (though I desperately hope it will be live action and not an animated as
rumor suggests).
One of the
main features of Star Trek is the technobabble. Anyone who has seen even one
episode knows what I’m talking about: “Realigning the lateral sensors to detect
phase variance.” We understand each word by itself, but put them together and
it really doesn’t mean anything. They are words strung together with no
real-world meaning. They really don’t need to.
They’re a
form of verbal McGuffin to move the plot forward. The audience doesn’t need to
know exactly what it means when the anti-matter injectors have frozen and
magnetic containment is at 28%. We can tell by the reactions on the TV that
this is something bad, and the problem will need to be solved, usually by some
other means of technobabble, such as flooding the injector assembly with
Cryomecium in order to render the contaminant inert.
Unfortunately,
this past semester taught me that many of my students treat everyday words like
specialized jargon or technobabble. They don’t recognize words such as
frontier, wean, or peeks. When they encounter them, they gloss by them. In the
fictional world of Star Trek, the nonsense technobabble words can be glossed
over. The essence of the story doesn’t revolve around them. But everyday words
that appear in stories, newspapers, or in news broadcasts are essential.
Sentences hinge on the meaning of just a few words. An entire sentence turns on
one word, altering the entire meaning.
This is a
problem that has been very hard to diagnose, and even harder to fix, especially
at the level I teach at. I’m trying some ideas, but I have no idea if they’re
going to work. It would be nice if this could end like an episode of Star Trek.
I could use a bit of technobabble to save the day.