parallel

これはThe Japan Times Online, Jan. 12 にあったタイトルです。
Italian culture rep probes parallels
"parallel" 言とうと、意見が平行線をたどる事を直ぐに連想してしますのですが、上の文だとイタリア文化と日本文化の相似点、もしくは対比を調べているようです。更にサブキャプションを読みます。
Promoter hones art of bilateral understanding, especially when whim and planning converge
タイトルと直接関係する文を抜粋します。
Always working with people from different cultural backgrounds, he said he believes Japanese lack flexibility compared with Italians. "Japanese seem to organize everything beforehand. Italians tend to act on a whim, but they don't always do everything they came up with," he said.
中略
"If we mix good parts of both sides, I think we can create a really good environment for Italians and Japanese (to work together)," he said.
ここで "parallel" を辞書で見ます。
・OneLook Quick Definitions: something having the property of being analogous to something else
・Dictionary.com: having the same direction, course, nature, or tendency; corresponding; similar; analogous: Canada and the U.S. have many parallel economic interests.
・Cambridge Advanced Learner's English Dictionary: something very similar to something else, or a similarity between two things; I'm trying to see if there are any obvious parallels between the two cases.; It would be easy to draw (= make) a parallel between the town's history and that of its football club.
物理的な位置、方向としての平行の意味は英語でもありますが、日本語で言う「意見が平行線をたどる」を表すには "parallel" は意外にも使われないようで、 "parallel" はむしろ相似点がある場合に使われるようです。