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The beginning of Press-Ganging Able-Bodied Men《抓壮丁》has the following passage filled with three consecutive lines starting with left tortoise shell brackets (〔) :

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and transcription:

〔中秋节前一天。
〔一个暴发户，货高利货，大斗进小斗出，盘剥起家的地主的堂屋。（如在广场演出，只要一张桌子，四根板凳或椅子就行了。）
〔开幕时，李老拴坐在桌前抽水烟，一边唱着《江油关》。

I find it especially interesting that the brackets don't close, i.e.: you don't see the opposite facing tortoise shell bracket (〕) close off the sentences.

What role do these "〔" brackets play here?

Mou某
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  • 六角符號 ＂〔〕＂多被稱爲＂舞臺提示符號＂。另一半＂〕＂不寫的原因嘛，可能是被英語標點用法的習慣影響的。例: https://style.mla.org/speech-paragraphs-quotation-marks/ Use a closing quotation mark, however, only at the end of the person’s speech, not at the end of every paragraph. – dROOOze Apr 11 '19 at 09:38

1 Answers1

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What you are reading is a play script.

It is one of the common ways to mark non-dialogue lines in the script with "〔" or "[" ahead of the line. So in this case it's not actually functioning as half bracket, but rather just a head mark.

tweray
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