Quotation Marks ("") and Angle Quotation Marks (《》)

Question

Based on my recent observation, most people use "" to enclose a quote and use 《》 to enclose the name of a book (or a movie?). However, since I began my Chinese study, I have been learning to use 「」 as the quotation marks and ﹏﹏ as the mark to enclose the name of a book (I do not know what the mark is called or how to find an example of it). As I remember, the textbooks I used were from Hong Kong, and all the texts use 「」 and ﹏﹏ in place of "" and 《》, respectively. I have also read/studied some texts which use 〖〗 for book name.

As such, which style is correct in an academic/professional writing? Or is it merely different practices for Traditional and Simplified Chinese?

Answer 1

In mainland:

Both are correct.

They are just two styles： ‘’ “” ,「」『』.

The former are borrowed from western countries, the usages in Chinese are identical with English.

The latter,「」 and 『』 are from Japanese. Although they are not so often used as the former, but they are definitely acceptable. In fact, Some people claims we should only use 「」『』 for quotation, because they are more suitable for Chinese character. They mean visual effects.

﹏﹏ is used in ancient texts acting likes 《》, they are for books, movies,songs and other specified names.

To 〖〗 ,don't know it.

The names of frequently used marks：

“” 引号，‘’ is 单引号，“” is 双引号。

「」 is called 直引号。

《》 书名号，专名号。

—— 破折号。

；分号。

…… 省略号。

， 逗号。

。 句号。

？ 问号。

！ 感叹号 or 惊叹号。

You may find that in some technical writings, the 。 is replaced by .

Answer 2

I don't know the Traditional, but in Simplified , “” and 《》 is the formal way.

Answer 3

I will recommand you to refer to this file, General rules for punctuation,which is the Chinese official reference to the use of punctuation.

Answer 4

“” and 「」

These two marks are used for quoting. Under normal circumstances, “” is used in modern Chinese (Mandarin/Putonghua/simplified Chinese), mostly used in written language in mainland China.

Instead 「」 is used in ancient Chinese (Cantonese/Traditional Chinese). mostly used in written language in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, because these areas still writing in the traditional way.

Also, in vertical text, simplified Chinese uses 「」 as well, mainly because vertical texts are normally used in traditional things.

《》 and ﹏﹏

These two marks are used to enclose the name of Literary works.

《》 is used in simplified Chinese and ﹏﹏ is used in ancient Chinese. Hong Kong mainly uses ﹏﹏ now and mainland China most uses 《》.

Reference:

书名号“《》”，新中国成立之初国家颁布的《标点符号用法》还没有符号。原来的书名号是在文字下方（横写）或左方（直写）画波浪线﹏﹏。但因为这种标点符号排印起来费事，因此很少使用。后来，为了印刷方便，节省人力物力，遇到书报刊名之类，就常用引号代替。 《》号原是俄文中的符号，大致相当于现代汉语中的引号。20世纪50年代，在学俄语的热浪中，不少人把《》搬用过来，用如引号，久而久之，便被人们所接受。开始时人们叫它“尖括号”，后来改称为书名号。 波浪线现在中国大陆仅在古籍中配合专名号使用，但在香港及台湾仍被经常使用，但香港普遍学生都会因为麻烦而不会用横线的书名号，而改用中国大陆规范的“《》”。由于电脑和网络运用的普及，加上传统书名号（﹏﹏）在电脑输入和排版上的不便，现今台湾也渐渐接受使用“《》”和“〈〉”作为书名号。同GB/T 15834-1955的规定不同，台湾在使用书名号时，有时可以在并非嵌套的情况下在篇章中直接使用单书名号，称作“篇名号”。

(林穗芳．《标点符号学习与应用》．人民出版社．2000年)