This study examines enunciative phenomena within discourse analysis and tries to build ties between these phenomena and their implementation for didactic purposes in a French language course book. The following question stems from the problematic: Which didactic content is proposed by a more or less current French language course book in order to convey information about enunciative phenomena to students? 

In the light of the above-mentioned question, we review phenomena such as enunciative dimensions, shifting markers, modality markers, enunciative management markers and polyphony in the theoretical section of the study. These phenomena are analyzed in terms of the following components: shifted/non shifted levels, shifters of person/ostension, modalities of enunciation/utterance and polyphonic markers of point of view.

As far as enunciation is concerned, we deal with the shifted level where the speaker is subjectively engaged in the utterance, which constitutes in fact the starting point of enunciation according to Benveniste (1966 & 1974). Hence, for this French linguist, it is possible to retrieve linguistic traces or marks in an utterance, as the product of enunciation: These linguistic marks are called shifters (see Jakobson, 1963).

Shifters are divided into two broad categories: shifters of person and shifters of ostension. Shifters of person (see Sarfati, 2005; Charaudeau & Maingueneau, 2002, etc.) concern, for the French language, the 1st/2nd-person pronouns (e.g. je, tu, nous, vous), the 1st/2nd-person possessive pronouns (e.g. le mien/le nôtre/le tien/le vôtre and their derivatives) and possessive adjectives (e.g. mon/ton/notre/votre and their derivatives), as these markers acquire a significance according to the speaker and the situation of enunciation. It should also be noted that these markers are different from the 3rd-person related lexical unities of the same grammatical categories which prove to be relevant in terms of textual co-reference as part of cohesion. Shifters of ostension firstly consist of lexical unities which mark spatiality and fall into different grammatical categories such as demonstrative adjectives/pronouns (e.g. ce, ça, ceci, celui and their derivatives), adverbial particles (e.g. –ci and –là), adverbs/adverbial locutions (e.g. ici, là, là-bas, etc.) and presentative constructions (e.g. c’est, voici and voilà). Secondly, they also mark time through the use of adverbs/adverbial locutions (e.g. maintenant, hier, dans trois jours, etc.) and the suffixes of present/past/future tenses serving to conjugate the root verb. 

Modalities of enunciation (see Sarfati, 2005) refer to two phenomena: first of all, the modality of an utterance (e.g. assertive, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory modalities) and secondly, the speech act undertaken by an utterance (e.g. assertion, demand, promise, order, suggestion, etc.). Nouns (e.g. un chauffard), adjectives (e.g. bon), adverbs (e.g. franchement) and verbs (e.g. espérer) which present subjectivity are categorized as part of the modalities of utterance. 

Polyphonic markers of point of view (see Riegel et al., 2009) derive from enunciative subjectivity but they also point to the presence of an actual or a virtual co-speaker towards whom the speaker takes position enunciatively. For instance, a prepositional locution such as selon moi indicates that the speaker enunciatively takes charge of the utterance; however, it also refers to the implicit or explicit presence of another enunciative position, hence the polyphonic aspect of such usage.

In the light of the above-mentioned enunciative phenomena, the analysis grid is methodologically based on the following components: shifted/non shifted levels, shifters of person/ostension, modalities of enunciation/utterance and polyphonic markers of point of view. In order to carry out the analysis, a part of a chapter (the topic of which being the expression of opinion) in a French language course book (Édito for the B2 learning level, Heu & Mabilat, 2015) was chosen. 

First of all, the results show that shifting proves to be the starting point of enunciation. In this regard, the 1st/2nd-person pronouns/possessive adjectives, the demonstrative pronoun ça and the presentative c’est especially function as shifters of person/ostension. 

Secondly, it was found that speech acts may be considered as a rationale for enunciation: We observed that the modalities of enunciation are related to assertion, interrogation, and exclamation, while some specific speech acts concerning the expression of opinion were identified (e.g. asking for an opinion, expressing certainty/ disagreement/possibility, agreeing with someone with reservations, sharing a point of view, etc.).

Thirdly, the modalities of utterance operate as the lexical apparatus of subjectivity within enunciation, i.e. some lexical unities are revealed to be the linguistic marks for ensuring subjectivity, especially opinion verbs (e.g. Qu’en pensez-vous ? Il me semble que…, ça ne fait aucun doute, etc.), attributive adjectives (e.g. C’est absurde/aberrant/ ridicule/délirant, je n’en suis pas si sûr(e), etc.) and opinion adverbs (e.g. certes, effectivement, probablement, etc.). 

Lastly, while some markers of point of view (e.g. à ma connaissance, d’après moi, etc.) in the form of prepositional locutions are used for the management of enunciation, they essentially contribute to the polyphony.