order becomes an order to the self: it is thus that the isolated hunter, separated
from the rest of the group, urges himself on. At this stage, consciousness is
still contingent and sporadic. (5) The dialectic of internalisation of the external
sign constitutes consciousness as a relation of the subject to himself. (6)
Consciousness thus becomes not only consciousness of the external object,
but constant self-consciousness. (7) When the indicative gesture thus
internalised by the individual is internalised by the whole group, it can serve
to designate not only the subject, but any object in its absence: it then becomes
a sign. (8) The generalisation of signs within the group confirms its members
as individual subjects.
The emergence of consciousness, the first conscious realisation, therefore
passes through three stages: the sporadic use of indicative gestures to refer
to oneself, which induces the appearance of the first forms of self-consciousness;
the generalisation of this self-consciousness via the appearance of signs – a
generalisation that is the acquisition of a group consciousness, consciousness
of belonging to a collectivity; and the dialectical return to self-consciousness
through the intermediary of the collective, which leads to the transformation
of sporadic self-consciousness into stable consciousness, making the member
of the group an individual subject. All this contains echoes of the process that
Althusser describes under the rubric of interpellation (of which Tran Duc
Thao was unaware), by means of an indicative gesture addressed towards
the outside and returning to the self by being internalised in the form
of consciousness.
Where is the birth of language in this picture? Language is born at the
same time as consciousness and has its origin in indicative gestures, in the
original form of economic activity: hunting in bands. Faithful to his starting-
point, Tran Duc Thao analyses the emergence in the child of what he calls
‘syncretic language’ – the transformation of indicative gestures into words-
sentences. The first words-sentences accompany gestures – for example,
goodbye gestures. These words-sentences are limited in number and polysemic.
The crucial moment is situated here. Not only when the same gesture is used
for diverse objects or situations, but when it sets about designating objects
in their absence, thus leading the child to graduate from presentation to
representation – that is when it becomes a sign. This transition to representation
involves a form of subjectivity: by producing signs even when they are alone,
primitive hunters recognise themselves,provided that these signs become public.
148 • Chapter Six