[…] ‘broken language’ (BL), i.e., learners’ productions of a target language.
- Ferguson-DeBose (1977), a pag.108

[…] many features of BL represent simplification or reductions of the target language and as such are similar in kind to the simplification found in first language acquisition, simplified registers, language loss, and elsewhere in language variation and in language change. Such ‘errors’ typically include omission of inflections and confusion among them, overgeneralization of morphological and syntactic patterns, preference for general and undifferentiated lexical items. Second, many features represent transfers of structure from the first language, and as such are similar in kind to the borrowings and accommodations between languages in contact. Such ‘errors’ typically include substitutions of sounds and assimilation patterns from the first language and mismatches of grammatical categories and ranges of meaning of lexical items. Third, many features of BL reflect individual histories of exposure to the target language, idiosyncratic details of the linguistic system of the learner’s preceding stage of ‘grammar’, favourite strategies of the learner, and other factors that are neither developmental in nature nor due to interference.
- Ferguson-DeBose (1977), a pag.108-109

[…] the characteristics of BL differ depending on the social context of the use of the language […].
- Ferguson-DeBose (1977), a pag.109