Inherently Metaphorical Correlation between Existential Categories Conflict and Fire in English-Language Culture

The paper focuses on the issue of metaphorical conceptualization of reality based on the associative correlation between abstract and basic (concrete) categories. Metaphor is considered as a cognitive mechanism, a structure relating mental representations to a perceptional and experiential ground in whose formation the cultural environment plays an essential role. The inherently metaphorical analogy between the existential categories «conflict» and «fire», analyzed through contemporary English phraseological units, serves as an example of the stated theory.