Over the last 25 years, focus on form (Long, 1991) has emerged as a leading paradigm for second language acquisition (SLA) research on the interface between theory and practice. Numerous studies have been conducted to assess its efficacy as it is implemented in a variety of instructional settings. The findings, on the whole, point to the understanding that focus on form selectively facilitates second language (L2) development in some linguistic domains, with others such as inflectional morphology not quite susceptible to its influence.

In this chapter, I use the role of meaning in focus on form as a lens through which to identify conceptual and empirical problems that may have contributed to its relative lack of efficacy for L2 morphosyntactic learning. First, I will provide some general background for focus on form. Then, I will review the main tenets of focus on form and examine one of its instantiations, recasts, with a view to revealing the gaps between the theory and the research. After that, I will advance the argument that meaning is a learnability problem. Finally, building on the insights gained from the preceding analysis, I will present a pedagogical model for recasts that may increase their efficacy for morphological restructuring.

Some Background

Second language acquisition, like first language acquisition, proceeds largely through functions, featuring the primacy of communicative meaning. Semantics appears to take precedence over syntax and morphology, and pragmatics, in turn, takes priority over semantics (Lightbown & Spada, 2006; Skehan, 1998; Slobin, 1973; VanPatten, 1996). This seeming commonality notwithstanding, the outcome of second language learning is almost always different from that of first language learning (passim the L2 literature). 'In fact, it can be argued that it is the enormous contrast between the two phenomena that needs explaining, rather than either of the two phenomena per se' (DeKeyser, 2005: 1).