In this study, we analyze pointing and self-reference in two children : one acquiring French and the other French Sign Language (FSL). The two children internalize the adult language and acquire the linguistic markers used by their interlocutors as well as their social codes and their behaviors. We show that the presence of an explicit form of self-reference is not used and is not necessary for the two children to establish deictic reference thanks to the properties of the dialogue and the situation. However, the child speaking French acquires the standard pronominal subject form because of the syntactic constraints of the adult language and of the necessity to rely on the enunciative function of the pronoun je to mark co-enunciative positioning. The comparison between the two children enables us to shed light on the processes at play in the use of pointing and the acquisition of self-reference in each language.