SLA develops when groups of speakers of several different first languages (L1s) are in contact, whereas pidgins are a situation of bilingual contact only. The admixture (merging of two or more languages into one), characteristic of interlanguages (ILs), is never seen in pidgins. SLA is a group phenomenon, pidginization an individual phenomenon, meaning that pidginization use for intra-group communication is unusual. of one. Which one?

SLA, with access to the target language, allows for correction and consequent gradual approximation to that target; pidginization, with restricted access, does not provide this option. Pidginization is not targeted language change, but more independent linguistic development.

For socio-economic and political reasons (colonialism, with imported slave or contract labour), the factors underlying social distance between superstrate language and pidginizing language groups are different from those determining social distance in most SLA situations, with attendant differences in the amount of contact with the target language that is available.