In the context of migration, a variety of languages is an integral part of daily language routines, whereby bilinguals may draw upon features from their linguistic repertoire to communicate appropriately (Velasco and Carcía, 2014). The research on biscriptual bilinguals conducted so far highlights the possibility of strategic and purposeful application of scripts in writing (Al-Azami et al, 2010; Kenner, 2004; Laursen, 2013). This paper will focus on how German-Russian biscriptual bilinguals strategically apply scriptual resources within a process of translanguaging for conducting their writings in German and Russian, whereas a particular attention is devoted to the practice of transliteration as a distinct feature of translanguaging in biscriptual writing. Moreover, the relation of translanguaging to the actual quality of produced texts as well as the potential (dis-)advantages of using two different scripts in writing in adolescents, are discussed. The results to be presented are based on the selected data from the German longitudinal study, “Multilingual Development: A Longitudinal Perspective” which investigates the development of students’ literacy skills, measured both as students’ writing and reading competence in their heritage languages (Russian or Turkish), in German, and in foreign languages learned at school.

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