‘标点符号’ literally means ‘mark-dot symbol-sign’ and refers collectively to all punctuation marks used in written Chinese—such as commas (，), periods (。), question marks (？), exclamation marks (！), quotation marks (“”), parentheses (（）), and em dashes (——). Unlike English, Chinese uses full-width punctuation placed within the same square character grid, and many marks differ in form and placement (e.g., the Chinese period is a small circle 。 rather than a dot .).

This term is used formally and academically—common in language education, editing, publishing, and grammar instruction. It emphasizes the functional role of these marks: guiding reading rhythm, clarifying sentence structure, and signaling tone or emphasis. While individual punctuation marks have their own names (e.g., 逗号 for ‘comma’), ‘标点符号’ serves as the umbrella noun for the entire system, much like ‘punctuation marks’ in English.