"social metaphor" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It refers to a figure of speech that compares aspects of society or social interactions to something else. Example: "The notion of 'social climbing' is a common social metaphor that compares the act of moving up in social status to physically climbing a ladder."
The writer describes how Ritalin has become a social metaphor for modern travails.
But an epidemic of drugs is only a political or social metaphor.
Should we interpret this as a social metaphor for Mr. Tuttle?
As it happens, "Snakes on a Plane" isn't just about rubber reptiles and Mr. Jackson spewing pearls of profanity; it's also a solid, B-movie-style entertainment crammed with "Boos!" and lightly scented with a whiff of social metaphor.
FOR the first time in memory, Palm Beach residents are crossing the narrow waterway separating the two cities -- as a social metaphor the bridges were considered the longest in the world -- to check out the upstart.
His genius, aside from his poetic knack for piecing scraps of photographs and other tiny tidbits together, was to see collage as an inherent social metaphor: that its essence was to turn nothings into something, making disparate elements cohere; that it was about mixing and adding, a positivist enterprise.
(That's now conventional wisdom, as when political pundits routinely read motion pictures as big social metaphors).
Sometimes looking for social metaphors in fashion shows is a waste of brainpower, not when you can just sit back and enjoy the pageantry.
Two choreographers from Ithaca, N.Y., where they teach at Cornell University, have collaborated on "It's More What I Don't Say," which explores how concepts of enclosure and barrier can serve as both physical realities and social metaphors.
Johnny seems perversely blind to the social metaphors that surround him, focused instead on his own devouring ambition and haunted in his dreams by the tiny, superimposed figure of his left-behind sweetheart, who bumps and grinds like a libidinous Tinker Bell.
Based on our own observations and experiences teaching adult learners online, we question if the virtual learning environment presents different challenges and prospects for the adult learner versus the traditional student learner, along with an extension and complication of the more social metaphors of "virtual community".
