Analysis of Hedging Strategies in Indonesian and English News Reports on The Iran-US Conflict

Theresa Tiouli Pospos. English for Business and Professional Communication Study Program. Analysis of Hedging Strategies in Indonesian and English News Reports on The Iran-US Conflict.

This research analyzes the use of hedging strategies in Indonesian and English news reports on the Iran–US conflict, particularly reports concerning the deaths of three US soldiers. The objectives of this research are to identify the types of hedges used in the selected news reports, examine the principles served by these hedging expressions, and analyze how hedging contributes to the representation of actors in news discourse. This research employed a qualitative descriptive method using content analysis. The data consisted of nine news reports published between 1 and 4 March 2026 by Indonesian and English online news platforms. The analysis was conducted using Salager-Meyer’s (1994) framework of hedging strategies and Van Dijk’s ideological square.

The findings reveal that all five categories of hedges proposed by Salager-Meyer were present in the data, namely shields, approximators, attribution/personal doubt, emotionally charged intensifiers, and compound hedges. English news reports contained more hedging expressions than Indonesian news reports. The identified hedges primarily functioned to reduce certainty, avoid full commitment, and reflect limitations in accuracy. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that hedging strategies play a role in constructing ideological representations of actors. Iran was frequently represented through expressions associated with potential retaliation, escalation, and threat, whereas the United States was often portrayed as a victim, a defensive actor, or a strategic responder. These patterns reflect Van Dijk’s ideological square through the positive representation of the in-group and the negative representation of the out-group.

In conclusion, hedging functions not only as a marker of uncertainty but also as a discursive strategy that contributes to the construction of meaning, ideology, and actor representation in news discourse.

Keywords: hedging, news discourse, Iran–US conflict, ideological square, Critical Discourse Analysis.