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In English figurative meaning of word usually marked with quotation marks like
this:

> The motherboard is sometimes considered the "brain" of a computer.

I know that in Japanese quotation marks usually used for emphasis. But do they
also used to mark figurative meaning or some other method is used?
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2018-08-29T09:01:21.000
61186
2018-10-05T22:19:24.747
2018-08-29T09:20:41.973
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question
orthography
Marking figurative meaning of word
Yes, Japanese quotation marks (`「」`) can be used to enclose non-literal or
figurative expressions.

> マザーボードはしばしばコンピュータの「頭脳」と見なされる。

Double corner brackets (`『』`) and Western-style double-quotes (`“ ”`)are also
commonly used for this purpose. [This
article](https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/05/quotation-marks-
japanese.html) seems good.

But please don't think take this as a hard rule. As a matter of fact, Japanese
people use brackets fairly loosely. Quotation marks are not strongly
associated with sarcasm, either. See the following questions.

  * [「」 don't seem to be 'quotation marks' in news article titles, what do they mean?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/29341/5010)
  * [Do Japanese people use quotation marks for emphasis?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/21274/5010)

(By the way, the "brain" of a PC is usually a CPU, isn't it?)
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2018-08-29T17:08:10.507
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answer
Usually 傍点(ぼうてん) is used.  
傍点 are small dots used like furigana, and put above or on the side of the word
you want to emphasize.

Example:  
傍点{・・}

Frequently they can mean sarcasm.  
Unfortunately you cannot 傍点 in text files.  
Only on computer files that allow furigana, like Word files.

[https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/en/傍点/#je-69567](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/en/%E5%82%8D%E7%82%B9/#je-69567)  
<https://www.724685.com/weekly/qa120328.htm>  
[https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/202293/meaning/m1u/傍点/](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/202293/meaning/m1u/%E5%82%8D%E7%82%B9/)  
[https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/圏点](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8F%E7%82%B9)
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answer