Biscriptuality

Abstract

In the context of constantly increasing linguistic diversity in many parts of the world, opportunities and challenges arise for the acquisition of literacy skills. The successful development of literacy skills becomes a crucial prerequisite for educational attainment determining future career prospects of migrant students. Multilingual settings reveal the diversification of languages and scripts prompted in the context of migration. This monograph explores the phenomenon of biscriptuality and aims to provide an approach for investigating the development of biliteracy in the context of divergent scripts. This interdisciplinary mixed-methods study bridges intercultural education science, education research and applied linguistics for gaining a complex view on the role of biscriptuality in students’ biliteracy. It considers the extent of students’ biscriptual skills, specifies language dimensions in which the influence on biliteracy may occur, and differentiates between the effects of biscriptuality on the development of writing skills in two different genres, narrative and expository.

Biscriptuality as a Bridge to Biliteracy: The Development of Scriptual Skills in Reading and Writing in Russian as a Heritage Language in Germany

“…The transcription of the reading test was conducted based on the Duden conventions for the transcription of Russian into German. The choice of this system is based on previous research indicating that Latin graphemes used in writing by German-Russian bilinguals show high correspondence with Duden conventions (Usanova, 2019), as these are written with Latin graphemes and are primarily based on reproduction of the sound (Mulisch, 1996).…”

“…Most studies conducted on literacy skills in bilinguals focus either on writing or on reading, with only a few focusing on both skills (e.g., Brehmer & Mehlhorn, 2018;Brehmer et al, in press;Dworin, 2003;2006;Klinger et al, 2019b;Sparrow et al, 2014). Studies conducted on writing in more than one language have shown that writing skills in different languages are positively interrelated (Schoonen et al, 2003;2011;Soltero-González et al, 2012;Sparrow et al, 2014;Uluçam-Wegmann et al, 2019;Usanova, 2019;. The studies which considered both skills in bilingual students revealed that the acquisition sequence for both skills may deviate from typical monolingual sequences (Dworin, 2006).…”

“…To specify the biliteracy development in two scripts, the term biscriptuality has been used (Usanova, 2019). According to research on biscriptual writing, students' biscriptuality represents a continuum of scriptual skills, with two poles representing two different scripts (e.g., Latin and Cyrillic) with the mixing of both scripts placed between both poles.…”

“…According to this framework, students' biscriptuality is related to and provides insights into students' biliteracy. Thus, studies reveal that students' scriptual skills also reflect their writing skills in the HL, with students who write in Cyrillic script showing the highest skills in writing, followed by those who mix both scripts and those who compose texts by using the Latin script only (Usanova, 2016;2019). Furthermore, this approach assumes that students' biscriptuality is dynamic, and the movement alongside the continuum of scriptual skills can take place in either direction (Usanova, 2019).…”

“…Furthermore, whereas cross-sectional studies investigated instances of script choice or scriptual skills at a certain period, the development of scriptual skills from the longitudinal perspective remains to be explored. Previous cross-sectional research on biscriptual writing noted the dynamics across the continuum of biscriptual skills in a migration context with the development of scriptual skills potentially going in either direction (Usanova, 2019). However, a longitudinal study is needed to get insights into the actual process of moving across the Continuum of Biscriptuality as well as to determine the directions of such movement.…”