Forensic Linguistics and the Detecting of Deviant Teaching in Malaysia

Abstract

Recently, deviant teaching has become a religious crime because it has been associated with extremist groups promoting violence and killing people in the name of Islam. This paper discusses the importance of forensic linguistics in detecting religious deviant teaching in Malaysia, having the objectives of (1) identifying a text's features that can be used as evidence when detecting deviant teaching, and (2) describing the interpretation of meanings given by the leader of the deviant group. The discussion of forensic linguistics is based on a religious discourse analysis approach proposed by Nordin (2015). The data used in the discussion are selected from two religious decisions, which are Ajaran Azhar bin Wahab in the state of Kedah and Ajaran Harun in the state of Pahang. The results show that the main features of a text that can be used as evidence in detecting deviant teaching are sacred words; for instance, karamah (extraordinary happenings) andTuhan (God). The results also show that the interpretation of meaning given by the leader of a deviant group is distorted from its actual meaning as determined by religious authorities, namely the Ahl Sunnah walJama'ah.

Gricean Maxim Violation(s) in the Murder Case of Jamal Khashoggi

“…Further, there has been a spate of interest in forensic linguistics and much research conducted in the field of forensic linguistics in various areas such as investigation in the police report (Sumaljag, 2018), research about fraud in the Judicial System as a Language Crime (Momeni, 2012), analyzing suicide note cases (Sudjana, 2013), studying bribery case in Indonesia (Waskita, 2014), exploring an authorship identification (Neito et al, 2008), applying Forensic linguistics in detecting of deviant teaching in Malaysia (Nordin, 2016), and reviewed forensic linguistics in the light of crime investigation (Ramezani et al, 2016). As a result, no study investigated an international murder case broadcasted in Media.…”