Evidentiality in the Speech of Guineans Focusing on the Difficulties of Communication in Portuguese

This study points out the evidential markings in the speech of Guinean students when they are asked about the difficulties they encounter when communicating in Portuguese. It shows to what extent their commitment (or lack thereof) to something they have said may be thought to reveal the process of making a language official, which the country is currently going through, as part of the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOPs). The methodology initially explains the official-language laws of Guinea-Bissau, focusing on the case of Portuguese as an official language in that country; it then presents a linguistic/discursive analysis of the speech of twenty Guinean academics. This paper is an excerpt of the ALIB questionnaire and analyzes the metalinguistic questions that were reformulated to the African context.