are quotation marks text features

Answer 1

｢ ｣ are quotation marks used in East Asian languages, though they have been repurposed for other contexts (see below). In English, typographers mostly prefer not to set brackets in italics, even when the enclosed text is italic. However, in other languages like German, if brackets enclose text in italics, they are usually also set in italics. Uses in writing Parentheses (singular, parenthesis ) (also called simply brackets, or round brackets, curves, curved brackets, oval brackets, stalls or, colloquially, parens ) contain material that serves to clarify (in the manner of a gloss) or is aside from the main point. A milder effect may be obtained by using a pair of commas as the delimiter, though if the sentence contains commas for other purposes, visual confusion may result. That issue is fixed by using a pair of dashes instead, to bracket the parenthetical. In American usage, parentheses are usually considered separate from other brackets, and calling them "brackets" is unusual. Parentheses may be used in formal writing to add supplementary information, such as "Sen. John McCain (R - Arizona) spoke at length". They can also indicate shorthand for "either singular or plural" for nouns, e.g. "the claim(s)". It can also be used for gender neutral language, especially in languages with grammatical gender, e.g. "(s)he agreed with his/her physician" (the slash in the second instance, as one alternative is replacing the other, not adding to it).Parenthetical phrases have been used extensively in informal writing and stream of consciousness literature. Examples include the southern American author William Faulkner (see Absalom, Absalom! and the Quentin section of The Sound and the Fury) as well as poet E. E. Cummings. Parentheses have historically been used where the dash is currently used in alternatives, such as "parenthesis)(parentheses". Examples of this usage can be seen in editions of Fowler's. Parentheses may be nested (generally with one set (such as this) inside another set). This is not commonly used in formal writing (though sometimes other brackets [especially square brackets] will be used for one or more inner set of parentheses [in other words, secondary {or even tertiary} phrases can be found within the main parenthetical sentence]). Any punctuation inside parentheses or other brackets is independent of the rest of the text: "Mrs. Pennyfarthing (What? Yes, that was her name!) was my landlady." In this use, the explanatory text in the parentheses is a parenthesis. Parenthesized text is usually short and within a single sentence. Where several sentences of supplemental material are used in parentheses the final full stop would be within the parentheses, or simply omitted. Again, the parenthesis implies that the meaning and flow of the text is supplemental to the rest of the text and the whole would be unchanged were the parenthesized sentences removed. In more formal usage, "parenthesis" may refer to the entire bracketed text, not just to the punctuation marks used (so all the text in this set of round brackets may be said to be "a parenthesis", "a parenthetical", or "a parenthetical phrase"). Uses in enumerations Lower-case Latin letters used as indexes, rather than bullets or numbers, followed by an unpaired parenthesis, are used in ordered lists especially in: a) educational testing, b) technical writing and diagrams, c) market research, and d) elections. Uses in mathematics Parentheses are used in mathematical notation to indicate grouping, often inducing a different order of operations. For example: in the usual order of algebraic operations, 4 × 3 + 2 equals 14, since the multiplication is done before the addition. However, 4 × (3 + 2) equals 20, because the parentheses override normal precedence, causing the addition to be done first. Some authors follow the convention in mathematical equations that, when parentheses have one level of nesting, the inner pair are parentheses and the outer pair are square brackets. Example: [ 4 × ( 3 + 2 ) ] 2 = 400. {\displaystyle [4\times (3+2)]^{2}=400.} A related convention is that when parentheses have two levels of nesting, curly brackets (braces) are the outermost pair. Following this convention, when more than three levels of nesting are needed, often a cycle of parentheses, square brackets, and curly brackets will continue. This helps to distinguish between one such level and the next.Parentheses are also used to set apart the arguments in mathematical functions. For example, f(x) is the function f applied to the variable x. In coordinate systems parentheses are used to denote a set of coordinates; so in the Cartesian coordinate system (4, 7) may represent the point located at 4 on the x-axis and 7 on the y-axis. Parentheses may be used to represent a binomial coefficient, and also matrices. Uses in programming languages Parentheses are included in the syntaxes of many programming languages. Typically needed to denote an argument; to tell the compiler what data type the Method/Function needs to look for first in order to initialise. In some cases, such as in LISP, parentheses are a fundamental construct of the language. They are also often used for scoping functions and for arrays. In syntax diagrams they are used for grouping, such as in Extended Backus–Naur form. Uses in other scientific fields Parentheses are used in chemistry to denote a repeated substructure within a molecule, e.g. HC(CH3)3 (isobutane) or, similarly, to indicate the stoichiometry of ionic compounds with such substructures: e.g. Ca(NO3)2 (calcium nitrate). They can be used in various fields as notation to indicate the amount of uncertainty in a numerical quantity. For example: 1234.56789(11)is equivalent to: 1234.56789 ± 0.00011e.g. the value of the Boltzmann constant could be quoted as 1.38064852(79)×10−23 J⋅K−1 Uses in published text Square brackets—also called crotchets or simply brackets (US)—are often used to insert explanatory material or to mark where a [word or] passage was omitted from an original material by someone other than the original author, or to mark modifications in quotations. In transcribed interviews, sounds, responses and reactions that are not words but that can be described are set off in square brackets — "... [laughs] ...". A bracketed ellipsis, [...], is often used to indicate omitted material: "I'd like to thank [several unimportant people] for their tolerance [...]" Bracketed comments inserted into a quote indicate where the original has been modified for clarity: "I appreciate it [the honor], but I must refuse", and "the future of psionics [see definition] is in doubt". Or one can quote the original statement "I hate to do laundry" with a (sometimes grammatical) modification inserted: He "hate[s] to do laundry". Additionally, a small letter can be replaced by a capital one, when the beginning of the original printed text is being quoted in another piece of text or when the original text has been omitted for succinctness— for example, when referring to a verbose original: "To the extent that policymakers and elite opinion in general have made use of economic analysis at all, they have, as the saying goes, done so the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination", can be quoted succinctly as: "[P]olicymakers [...] have made use of economic analysis [...] the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination." When nested parentheses are needed, brackets are sometimes used as a substitute for the inner pair of parentheses within the outer pair. When deeper levels of nesting are needed, convention is to alternate between parentheses and brackets at each level. Alternatively, empty square brackets can also indicate omitted material, usually single letter only

Answer 2

Yes, quotation marks are considered text features. They are used to indicate that the enclosed words are being directly quoted or referenced from another source. Quotation marks are important for distinguishing between the author's words and someone else's.