Implikatur dalam kes “pembunuhan Noritta”: analisis teori relevans

Semantics is the study of meaning. Pragmatics is a complement to semantics as it interprets meaning beyond the literal. In pragmatics, context is vital and plays an important role in the interpretation of meaning. Relevance theory, which intergrates communication and cognition, is suitable in understanding courtroom proceedings and trials, especially when implicatures are involved. Even though in court only explicit and clear questions and answers are permitted to avoid misinterpretation, nevertheless implicatures still exist and need further interpretation. This article focuses of the trial of Haniff Basri who was accused of killing Noritta. The acused’s lawyers successfully raised doubts and the accused (Hanif) thus escaped the death penalty. Relevance theory is applied in this study and proves that the manifested utterances are extremely important in order to avoid doubts that may affect the entire trial.