Communication

I took a class last week in Leadership and one of the lectures was about how people communicate with one another. I never really thought about it but the teacher at one point showed a slide with arrows that explained the different ways people in cultures communicate. I tried to copy and paste the slide into this, but it was too difficult so I'll just explain if I can. The first picture on the slide was an arrow that just pointed straight down. This was labeled the "English" way of speaking. Meaning, people who speak English get to the point relatively quickly without maneuvering through the conversation. For semitic languages, an arrow pointed to the right, then down at a diagonal to the left, then again to the right, then diagonal to the lower left, then back to the right. Like a zig zag. She said they speak in parallels, providing a lot of information but essentially moving around the same point. Then there was a circle arrow that represented the way people who speak oriental languages communicate. Essentially saying that the speak in circles and sometimes you get lost and don't know whether people are saying yes or no. Then we get to the romance languages. The diagram for this is like a curvy arrow that starts at the top and veers off right. Then another arrow starts midway through the first and veers left, then another right. By this representation she meant that the people who speak Romantic languages often give lots of back story to what they are trying to tell you.
I have noticed this in some common phrases that the French use often. One of the most prevalent is "In fact." They say it all the time. They also use "For example", "Therefore", "That is to say..." and "So". I realized they say these because when the French speak English they translate these phrases into English. Kind of strange for us to hear "In fact" all the time because we don't say it at home that much. But it is true, the French back up what they are saying with lots of information, which also goes along with a point someone made early in our visit here. If you ask the French a question, if they don't know the answer, they very rarely will say they don't know. Instead they'll try to talk their way into an answer. Most of the time it is just all BS, but they use lots of introductory words to make it sound like they know what they are talking about.