DOI: 10.24308/iass-2014-128

Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

nord.dronov@gmail.com

Abstract

The report deals with comparing and contrasting the idioms whose literal meaning involves ‘placing one’s head in an upright posture’. The idioms – namely, podnimat’ golovu (Russian), dići glavu (Serbian), to raise one’s ugly head, to hold one’s head high (English), den Kopf oben behalten / hoch halten (German). The fact that mention of body parts and/or gestures constitute a significant part of phraseology is self-evident; after all, there are somatic responses and gestures that are shared by all human beings, e.g. a laughing person makes one happy, a yawning person makes one sleepy, etc (see Robinson 1991). Some of those idioms may as well be con­sidered common figurative units (Piirainen 2012).

The aim is to find out what modifications they can undergo. Similarity of structure, as well as that of figurative meanings, may result in similar mechanisms of their modifications. More interesting, though, are their differ­ences. For instance, the Russian podnimat’ golovu “to raise one’s head”, usually meaning ‘to occur’ when referred to an event or ‘to commence an action’ when meaning a person or entity, appears to be modified quite rarely. The reason may be its image structure that allows one to use it in its literal sense rather than its figurative meaning (or, more accurately, to use a homonymous word group that means ‘to place one’s head in an upright posture’). If a modification occurs, it is usually adnominal (with an adjective or participle inserted into the idiom), context-based, or serving as a double-entendre device (e.g. podnimaet očerednuû golovu ‘raises yet another head’; on idiom modifications see Dobrovol’skij 2007, Dronov 2011). As for the English counterpart, to raise its ugly head, which has an adjectival constituent, it is used in its figurative meaning almost exclusively. The modifications that appear there are usually lexical and may involve replacement of a constituent (e.g. fash­ion raised its inconsistent head).

The report narrows the topic down to the figurative units having the NP head; thus it excludes idioms such as the Russian vyše golovu!, Serbian glavu gore!, German Kopf hoch! (literally, “head up”) for the reason of their English counterpart involving a chin instead of a head (chin up!). This aspect, along with those of other meta­phorically similar units, is to be taken into account in a larger study aimed at taking a closer look at idioms’ semantic, combinational and stylistic properties of idioms containing somatic components across languages.

This paper deals with comparing and contrasting the idioms whose nominal parts include somatic words (and whose literal meaning may involve a gesture).

The fact that mentioning body parts and/or gestures constitutes a significant part of phraseology is self-evident; after all, there are somatic responses and gestures that are shared by all human beings, e.g. a laughing person makes one happy, a yawning person makes one sleepy, etc. – see, for instance, (Robinson 1991).

The interest toward somatic and kinetic idioms in linguistics, semiotics and even neuroscience is traditionally high, with numerous papers written on the subject, e.g. (Culture, Body, and Language… 2008; Čermák 1998; Lipskiene 1979; Moon 1998; Pinsk et al. 2005; Pulvermüller 2005; Shuter 1976; Shiffrin 1974; Kozerenko and Krejdlin 1999; Krejdlin 2001, 2002; Teliâ 1996). F. Pulvermüller (Pulvermüller 2005) reveals that the brain of a person hearing words such as kick, lick, and pick has the corresponding zones of the motor cortex activated even before s/he understands their meanings. Interestingly, V. Gallese and G. Lakoff suppose that the same should happen to motion verbs serving as verbal parts in idioms, even the ones whose figurative meaning is not directly connected to the original motions (Gallese, Lakoff 2005). Some of the most recent works, such as (Shtyrov et al. 2015) may be seen as an argument in favour of this view.

Besides, such phraseological units may well be included in widespread idioms, despite their cultural specificity. Criteria for cultural specificity of idioms, the underlying cultural profile as stated by V. Teliâ (Teliâ 1996) seem to overlap with the classifications of common figurative units akin to those of È. Soloduho (Soloduho 2008) or E. Piirainen (Piirainen 2012) or ideas stated in (Dobrovol’skij, Piirainen 2005).

The paper focuses on comparing and contrasting the idioms whose literal meaning involves ‘placing one’s head in an upright posture’. The aim is to find out what modifications a somatic idiom can undergo. Similarity of structure, as well as that of figurative meanings, may result in similar mechanisms of their modifications. More interesting, though, are their differences.

The idiom taken for consideration in this report is to rear/raise one’s ugly head. It has quite a few counterparts in other languages, such as podnimat’ golovu, deržat’ golovu (vysoko) (Russian), dići glavu (Serbian), den Kopf oben behalten, den Kopf hoch tragen (German). All these word groups appear to belong to the class of common figurative units, or widespread idioms (a term coined by Elisabeth Piirainen).

These idioms are based on the conceptual metaphors that are so aptly put by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their cognitive theory of metaphor, namely:

HAPPY IS UP; UNHAPPY IS DOWN; CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN; HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP; SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN; HAVING CONTROL OR FORCE IS UP; BEING SUBJECT TO CONTROL OR FORCE IS DOWN; GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN; VIRTUE IS UP; DEPRAVITY IS DOWN, etc. (Lakoff and Johnson 2003).

The paper narrows the topic down to the figurative units whose counterparts have the NP head in all the languages under consideration; thus it excludes idioms such as the Russian vyše golovu!, Serbian glavu gore!, German Kopf hoch! (literally, “head up”) for the reason of their English counterpart involving a chin instead of a head (chin up!). This aspect, along with those of other metaphorically similar units, is being taken into account in a larger study whose aim is to classify somatisms in phraseology across languages and cultures.

Russian

A. Fëdorov’s Phraseologial Dictionary of the Russian Language defines the idiom as follows:

Podnimat’ golovu razg. èkspres. – načat’ dejstvovat’, proâvlât’ sebâ aktivno, obretaâ uverennost’ v svoih silah ‘to commence to act, to manifest active behavior while finding confidence in one’s strength’ (Frazeologičeskij slovar… 2008).

The search through the Russian National Corpus (RNC) demonstrates that the vast majority of contexts (more than 1250 out of 1410) contain collocations that denote the gesture and are homonymous with the idiom, i.e. podnimat’ golovu in the sense of raising one’s head per se.

(1) Razve vam ne nado domoj? Elena podnimaet golovu ot tetradej. – Da â vot rešila proverit’ kontrol’nuû. ‘“Don’t you need to get home?” Yelena “raises her head from the exercise-books” [i.e. looks up after looking at the exercise-books] , “Well, I thought I had to check the test.”’ [Andrej Gelasimov. Foks Malder pohož na svinju (2001); Russian National Corpus].

Nevertheless, the contexts in which the idiom is used in its figurative meaning are quite common.

(2) Sejčas, posle teraktov, oboronnye predpriâtiâ podnimaût golovu v ožidanii krupnyh zakazov ‘Now, after the terror acts, defense contractors “are raising their heads”, anticipating large-scale contracts’. [Vladimir Kvint: «Amerikanskuû èkonomiku vytânet VPK» (2001) // «Izvestiâ», 2001.09.19; Russian National Corpus].

The idiom allows for certain morphological modifications such as the insertion of a negative particle and use of the NP in the Genitive/Partitive case, which is quite common in Russian grammar (3 contexts):

(3) a. Lena Garanina vozmuŝalas’: «Â znaû, čto vy v komnate, otkryvajte!» А my sidim, golovy ne podnimaem. Â govorû: «Interesno, o čem oni dumaût, čem my sejčas zanâty?» ‘Lena Garanina was  crying in exasperation, “I know you’re in the room! Open the door!” And we were sitting, “not raising the head” [i.e. unable to raise our heads or do anything]. So I go, “I wonder what they think we are up to now.”’ [Natal’â Bestem’ânova i dr. Para, v kotoroj troe (2000-2001); Russian National Corpus]. (3) b. Tot na parnâ daže golovy ne podnimal, ne zamečal, i vsë tut! ‘He would “not even raise the head on” the guy, he would not even notice him and that’s all’ [Dina Rubina. Belaâ golubka Kordovy (2008-2009); Russian National Corpus]. (3) c. Byl u nas portnoj, Fёdor Konstantinovič, – horošij portnoj <…> Mesâca po dva golovy ne podnimal, – š’ёt, utûžit, – razve tol’ko vyskočit na kryl’co po ličnomu delu, ili vcepitsâ v golovu i davaj skresti volosy, – češetsâ ‘We used to have a tailor, Fyodor Konstantinovich, a good one <…> He would not “raise his head” for two odd months in a row, while sewing and ironing, stopping only to hop out on the porch because of some personal matter or to claw at his own head furiously, scratching where it itched’ [A. N. Tolstoj. Na rybnoj lovle (1923); Russian National Corpus].

Here, the figurative meaning seems to be somewhat different. The agent is likely to be too repressed to take any action whatsoever (3 a.) or too disgusted to greet a person (3 b.). In (3 c.), the idiom has a figurative meaning ‘to be focused on something’.

In all the three cases, a mental state conceptualized as a posture of a stooping person.

The connection to the gesture is apparent if one considers the contexts where the collocation is used.

(4) Za Dnestrom, pod Âssami, Bogačev vsego odin raz vzâl ego s soboj na peredovoj nablûdatel’nyj punkt, gde vse prostrelivalos’ iz pulemetov i gde ne to čto dnem, no i noč’û-to golovy ne podnât’ ‘It was only once on the other bank of the Dniester, near Iaşi, that Bogachov took him to the forward observation post, where everything was a target for machineguns and one “could not raise a head” at the daytime, yea even at night’. [G.Â. Baklanov. Ûžnee glavnogo udara (1957); Russian National Corpus].

Seven contexts contain lexico-syntactical modifications, all of which are context-based ore double-entendre–related (5a, b). Idiom modifications and their classification are covered, inter alia, in (Baranov, Dobrovol’skij 2008; Dronov 2011, Langlotz 2006).

(5) a. Èto čto že teper’ polučaetsâ: za ezdu po Nevskomu na privyčnoj dlâ graždan skorosti 120 km/čas štrafovat’ čto li budut? Pohože, stalinizm podnimaet očerednuû golovu ‘Now, what is that supposed to mean? Do they mean that they are going to fine people for driving along the Nevsky avenue at the oh-so-typical speed of 120 kmph? It appears that Stalinism “is raising yet another head”’ [Internet Journalism]. (5) b. I â udavil gadûku, posmevšuû podnât’ âdovituû golovu v duše moej. Navsegda. ‘And so I strangled the viper that durst “raise its venomous head” in the soul of mine. Forever’ [Boris Vasil’ev. Kartëžnik i bretër, igrok i duèlânt (1998); Russian National Corpus].

The other idiom under consideration is vysoko nesti golovu, cf.:

Vysoko nesti golovu èkspres. – vesti sebâ s dostoinstvom, gordo, nezavisimo‘to behave with dignity, in a proud and independent manner’ (lit. “to bear head high”) [Frazeologičeskij slovar’ russkogo literaturnogo âzyka. Pod red. А.I. Fedorova. M., 2008].

The overall number of occurrences is 127, the idiom mostly appearing in its figurative meaning, e.g.:

(6) Net u nego i pobuždeniâ, stol’ často tolkaûŝego na bezumnuû derzost’ molodye i pylkie duši: vyprâmit’sâ vo ves’ rost, vysoko nesti golovu . ‘Nor does he have a stimulus that so often drives young and fiery souls to feats of insane boldness, the wish to “stand straight and hold his head high”’[L. I. Šestov. Аpofeoz bespočvennosti (1905); Russian National Corpus].

The connection to the posture is visible.

In certain occurrences, the idiom has a meaning ‘to have an upright posture’, which is closer to the underlying metaphor. Probably, it might not be regarded as an idiom in its strictest sense but rather as a restricted collocation, see (Dobrovol’skij, Filipenko 2007; Baranov, Dobrovol’skij 2008). Cf.:

(7) Sam on sebâ v lûbom slučae sčital neotrazimym, i èto čuvstvovalos’ v každom ego dviženii: v tom, kak on razgulival po škol’nomu koridoru na peremene, prâmoj, kak balerina, gordelivo nesâ krasivuû, zabotlivo pričesannuû golovu, ustremiv zadumčivyj vzglâd svoih seryh s povolokoj glaz kuda-to vdal’ <...> ‘As for him, he thought of oneself as of an irresistibly attractive boy, which showed in his every movement – in the way he walked along the school corridor during the break, as straight as a ballerina, “haughtily bearing his handsome and carefully combed head”, and musing upon some distant scene with his grey and languishing eyes  ’ [Ûrij Vâzemskij. Šut (1982); Russian National Corpus].

As a collocation, this word-group is quite often marked by the inserted adverbial modifier gordelivo ‘proudly, haughtily’.

Here one might see an interesting connection of figurative meanings:

· gordo/gordelivo nesti golovu (‘to hold/bear one’s head proudly/haughtily’): the word-group usually refers to posture, yet the modifier denotes pride.

· vysoko nesti golovu (‘to hold/bear one’s head high’): the word-group refers to pride, yet the modifier denotes posture.

There is, however, an example of the idiom denoting pride and having an adverbial modifier. (a magnifier, or LF Magn, in Aleksandr Žolkovskij and Igor Mel’čuk’s terms).

I to, čto on molod, to, čto on gordo nës svoû golovu, čto ulybalsâ, čto legko brosal pod nogi sud’âm svoû žizn’, vse èto ne moglo prostit’sâ emu! ‘The fact that he was young, that he was “holding his head proudly”, that he was smiling, that he was easily throwing his life at the judges’ feet: all that that could not be forgiven’ [S. A. Savinkova. Gody skorbi // «Byloe», 1906; Russian National Corpus].

Serbian

Dići, podići glavu – osmeliti se; pogoditi se; uzoholiti se ‘to dare, to make an arrangement, to become arrogant’ (Rečnik Matice Srpske).

The Serbian corpus of the Belgrade University (School of Math) contains 18 contexts. Not unlike Russian, some of the contexts contain a homonymous restricted collocation, cf.:

(8) a. Svi se nasmeju. Miladin lenjo digne glavu ‘Everyone is laughing. Miladin raises his head lazily’ [Dušan Kovačević. Zec: savremena tragedija]. (8) b. Ruke dole! – režao je zadihano Sajfert. – Dole, kad kažem! Digni glavu! Digni! – nestrpljivo se razderao ‘“Hands down!” shouted Seifert, gasping. “I said down! “Raise your head”! Raise it!” he yelled impatiently’ [Miroslav Popović. Sudbine; Serbian Corpus].

In one context, which is cited in (9), the idiom does mean something similar to ‘uzoholiti se’, although this appears to be a piece of advice regarding pride and self-esteem rather than arrogance in a way similar to English chin up, Russian (ne) vešat’ nos, vyše golovu, Serbian glavu gore, German Kopf hoch!.

(9) Rekao sam mu : ‘Digni glavu , čoveče . Znam kako ti je . Imaš, ipak, veoma, veoma, svetlu budućnost’ ‘I told him, “Raise your head, man. I know how you feel. Still, you have a really, really bright future ahead of you”’ [RTS100514; Serbian Corpus].

A typical context demonstrating the idiom’s behavior looks like this:

(10) Perec je, javljaju izraelski mediji, govorio u Jerusalimu u Knesetu, izraelskom parlamentu. Njegovo izlaganje bilo je povremeno prekidano žučnim protestima arapskih poslanika, koji su tražili momentalni prekid svih ratnih operacija. On je uzvratio da će, ukoliko se ofanziva zaustavi, “ekstremisti ponovo dići glave”, a opasnost koju oni oličavaju neće biti uklonjena. ‘Perez spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem, Israeli media report. His speech was occasionally interrupted by billious protests of Arab delegates, who were demanding the momentary termination of all military activity. Perez replied that, if the offensive were stopped, the extremists would “raise their heads” again, and the danger they pose would not be avoided’ [Politika. 01.08.2006; Serbian Corpus].

Again, like its Russian counterpart, the idiom allows for certain morphological modifications altering its figurative meaning, such as glavu ne dignuti ‘not to raise one’s head’, i.e. ‘to be to repressed to do smth.’

(11) Zar je Bog i vera za krv ? Zar Bog hoće krv na zemlji , a ne živote ? Čujte me: prokleću vas . <…> Prokleću vas, što veru i obraz u krv pretvarate. Prokleću vas, da vam ni čukun-unuci glavu ne dignu, u crkvu ne uđu, u stolove ne sednu . ‘Is God and faith for bloodletting? Does God really want blood and not lives on Earth? Hearken: I shall damn you. I shall damn you for transmuting faith and God’s image into blood. I shall damn you so that not even your great-grandchildren would dare “raise their head”, enter the church, be seated at tables.’ [Borisav Stanković. Tašana; Serbian Corpus].

English

The Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Idioms defines the idiom to rear/raise its head in the following manner: “If you say that something undesirable rears or, you mean that it starts to appear to be active. You often use this expression raises its head when the thing you are talking about appears again after being hidden or absent for a period of time. <…> People often say that something undesirable rears or raises its ugly head” (Collins COBUILD).

Like in Russian, most of the contexts demonstrate raising one’s head in rather a literal sense, i.e. denoting nothing but posture (not to mention contexts that appear in the query index due to the lack of disambiguation, e.g. every family can raise its 300 head of cattle). Cf.:

(12) a. The creature in the doghouse – a 375-pound pink pig – raises its massive head and grunts in my direction. [2011; Fic; Bk:UnsaidNovel; COCA]. (12) (12) b. The turtle slowly raises its plumsize head and pops open its small eyes. [2010; MAG; Smithsonian; COCA].

Of the relatively small number of the idiom’s occurrences in its figurative meaning (17 in toto), fourteen contain the attribute ugly (13–15).

(13) They’ll just start raising the price of oil again and destroy the economy, because I happen to think, yes, the banks and, yes, the derivatives and, yes, all of the crazy financial instruments that were conjured up for people to make money and it turned out to be false money, but I also happen to think that $150 oil destroyed the world economically. And as soon as the world comes back, OPEC will raise its ugly head and destroy it again. [2009; SPOK; CNN Newsroom; COCA].

Notably, the NP head does not seem to be used in its plural form when applied to multiple entities. In three contexts, it is used in its singular form, cf.:

(14) a. Most faculty meetings are as exciting as a forty-inning baseball game, and contain even less intellectual content. But should genuine ideas raise their ugly head, Wallow taught, the truly wise administrator must know how to quash them. [001; ACAD; AcademicQs; COCA]. (14) b. LBO’s, they raise their ugly head again in unnamed companies. In terms of their affect on innovation, do you want to comment on that? [1995; ACAD; CanadaLaw; COCA]. (14) c. “I wanted to apologize for Pam Stem. She’s been out there a little too long.” “Who turned up the original story?” “I really don’t know – it was phoned in,” she said. “The therapist.” “I really don’t know,” she said, smiling. “And I wouldn’t tell you if I did.” “Ah. Ethics raise their ugly head.” [1994; FIC; Bk:NightPrey; COCA].

In (14 a., 14 b.), the idiom refers to entities (ideas and policies) that were either repressed or unlikely to happen before. In (14 c.), it deals with a certain feature that is frowned upon by the protagonist.

One context, however, is peculiar. Apart from the fact that the idiom’s NP is used in its plural form, its subject is a human being and not an inanimate entity (smb. instead of smth.)

It is the continued resistance by IRA-Sinn Fein that has halted the progress, and given the extreme militants the opportunity to raise up their ugly heads, thus cornering David Trimble into having no other option than to resign [2001; NEWS; SanFranChron; COCA].

Insertion of other modifiers is found in 3 contexts:

(15) a. I’d not had a particularly good day on the firing line. A flinching problem had raised its monstrous head, so I began to think I needed a cartridge with less recoil than the.308 Win. I’d used for years. [1997; MAG; OutdoorLife; COCA]. (15)b. “My God. A theme park. Gullah World. That’s just extraordinary, Clay,” I said fiercely. Anger was beginning to raise its snake’s head. It felt good, like scalding hot coffee when you are frozen and exhausted. [1998; FIC; Bk:LowCountry; COCA]. (15)c. The colonists wore simple utilitarian garments of gray-brown fiber, identical to the universal one-piece shipsuits still in use these many centuries later. I could see, however, that fashion was raising its inconstant head. [2002; FIC; FantasySciFi; COCA].

Such modifications are either conventionalized, as in example (15 a.) (i.e. adnominal modifiers are compatible with both the figurative meaning and the underlying metaphor) or context-based, as in (15 b., 15 c.), with inserted adnominal modifiers being incompatible with the underlying metaphor but augmenting the figurative meaning.

With the VP rear, however, the idiom is always used in its figurative meaning, and the most frequent lexico-syntactical modification (117 contexts out of 157) is to rear one’s ugly head/heads, which accounts for its inclusion into dictionaries. The reason behind this may lie in the fact that VP rear may denote somewhat bestial or animalistic movement, possibly leading to a rethink of the underlying metaphor. In other words, the subject is associated with an animal or monstrosity rearing its head.

Lexico-syntactical modifications are context-based and/or causing double-entendre, cf.:

(16) a. You’ve been skimming the treasury for years, have amassed a fortune of well over $100 million, but now democracy is rearing its troublesome head, and it's time to get out, with the money but without a paper trail. [1991; SPOK; ABC_Nightline; COCA]. (16) b. Just as astrophysicists were growing accustomed to their ignorance, the problem of dark matter reared its invisible head somewhere else. [2003; ACAD; NaturalHist; COCA].

There seem to be few lexical substitutions, such as when politics reared their ugly side [1994; NEWS; WashPost].

The second idiom under consideration is defined as follows:

To hold one’s head high – to be very confident and proud (Cambridge Dictionary of English).

(17) a. Latifah: Mom, you taught me to hold my head high and believe in myself [2004; FIC; Scholastic; COCA]. (17) b. Tang added that when he goes to class reunions from his university and sees that he is the only one in the cement business, “I feel unacceptable, because the industry is not good.” But he says he knows otherwise, and that he tells recruits to his firm to hold their heads high. “They should be proud of what we are doing! Other industries are consuming the Earth. We are preserving it.” [2008; MAG; Atlantic; COCA].

The idiom’s obvious connection to the posture manifests itself in many contexts, e.g.:

(18) a. Rose held her head high, like a dancer, and her dark hair rolled back in a bun accentuated her long neck. [1993; FIC; Bk:InMyFathers; COCA]. (18) b. His slouching shoulders, awkwardly splayed feet, and manner of gripping his hat and cane all convey a humble servitude. In contrast, Courbet has stepped forward with assurance on the opposite side, his thick legs and robust torso implying that he is the strongest of the three. His head is held high, and the chin's jaunty angle emphasizes that he boasted the longest beard. [2004; ACAD; ArtBulletin; COCA].

Though all the contexts cited are based on the American variety of English, it might not be too wrong an assumption to say that the idioms act differently in British English, cf.: “No matter how remote the locale, television is rearing its talking heads all over Mexico” [EBD; BNC].

German

The German counterparts do not seem to lose their connection with the movement/posture-related metaphor, either, cf.:

Den Kopf hoch tragen – stolz sein ‘to be proud’ (Duden 11).

Den Kopf oben behalten – den Mut nicht verlieren ‘not to lose one’s courage’ (Ibid.).

The connection does also manifest itself in collocations like Er steht sehr aufrecht, den fleischigen Kopf hoch, die grauen Augen geradeaus ‘He stands very straight, his fleshy head high, his gray eyes [staring] straight ahead’ (Lion Feuchtwagner. Die Opperman Geschwister).

The search query Kopf hoch in Das Digitale Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache reveals a wealth of contexts (373 in toto) containing expressions like Kopf hoch! ‘chin up’ (see supra) and Köpfen hoch droben ‘heads in the clouds’ (lit. “heads high above”). Meanwhile, den Kopf hoch tragen appears in 31 contexts. The idiom may sometimes allow for lexical substitutions, as its VP tragen ‘wear, carry’ can be substituted by halten ‘hold’ (19a) or heben ‘rear, raise’ (19b):

(19) a. Die da vorn sollen wissen, daß sie uns nicht klein kriegen, daß wir trotz allem den Kopf hoch halten! ‘Those in front should know that they will never make us small and that “we shall hold the head high” against all odds’ [Langhoff, Wolfgang, Die Moorsoldaten, Zürich: Schweizer Spiegel Verl. 1935, S. 150; DWDS-Kernkorpus]. (19) b. Die neuen Namen finden Gefallen, und Jeder, der einen solchen trägt, hebt seinen Kopf höher und ist zuversichtlicher, selbstbewußter, als er sonst gewesen ‘The new names are now in vogue, and he who carries one of those “raises his head higher” and is more confident, more sure of himself than he has ever been’ [Rosegger, Peter: Die Schriften des Waldschulmeisters. Pest, 1875; DWDS-Textarchiv].

The second idiom is not prone to lexical modifications, except for one archaic context from (DWDS) dating back to the 17^th century and having a synonymous NP.

(20) So wird dann nun der Cardinal Mazarin seiner Witz vnnd Subtitligkeit wohl bedörffen / daß er sich herauß wickle / vnnd die Hand / ja das Haupt oben behalte ‘So shall then Cardinal Mazarin need much of his wit and [subtlety? subterfuge?] to turn himself inside out and “hold the hand, yea even the head high”’ [Wartmann, Sigismund Friedrich: De Statu Pertvrbato Franciae et Germaniae: Vnpartheyischer wolmeynender Discursuum Supplementum, oder Fünffter Theil. Frankfurt (Main), 1653; DWDS-Textarchiv].

Here, the idiom’s figurative meaning is similar to that of to have the upper hand.

The few lexico-syntactical modifications found in (DWDS) are purely context-based.

21. a. Ja, Pink ist albern, aber Reese Witherspoon ist es nicht. Sie behält den frisierten Kopf oben, selbst wenn sie nur Bunny-Kostüme anhat ‘Yes, Pink is silly, but Reese Witherspoon is not. She “holds the coiffed head high” even when she wears only Bunny Costumes.’ [2001; DWDS - Kernkorpus]. b. Nur ist bei Theweleit der Begriff des „Siegers“ stark ausgeweitet . Sieger ist, wer den getalterischen [sic; gestalterischen?] Kopf oben behält, wer Lebensstoff in Form bringt, wer das, was ihn berührt, beispielsweise „Frauen“, zum Material  zum Auslöser eines Gestaltungswillens „verwendet“. ‘It is only in Theleweit that the concept of “winner” is greatly expanded. A winner is the one who “holds the creative head high”, who shapes the fabric of life, who “uses” anything that touches upon them (for instance, “women”) to trigger the will of creation.’ [1998; DWDS – Kernkorpus].

Conclusion

The connection of the figurative meaning to the underlying metaphor is fairly obvious, manifesting itself in a plethora of contexts where the collocations are used literally (however, this less likely to affect the English idiom variant to rear one’s ugly head).

The idiom and its counterparts are prone to a rethink of the figurative meaning. For instance, the Russian and Serbian idioms have morphological modifications golovy ne podnât’, glavu ne dignuti whose meanings may be interpreted as ‘not to dare to take an action, being repressed’ and ‘being focused on smth, not to be able to pay attention to anything else’.

Contexts quite often refer to a previously suppressed individual or group that begins to act in a decisive manner.

The English idiom has a conventionalized modification, which indicates its figurative usage and might be likely to prompt a user to make similar context-based or double-entendre modifications.

It is necessary to make a note on translating such idioms. Modifications of gesture/body idioms that are so widespread may be quite close. While there may be language-specific morphological modifications (article insertion/omission, change of verbal aspect, etc.), there is a number of similar models, e.g. lexico-syntactical modifications, which sometimes may be nearly identical (podnâla âdovituû golovu and raised its snake’s head). Therefore, one may translate a modified idiom with a nearly equivalent modification.

Yet, idioms such as the one in question tend to have semantic and pragmatic differences sufficient enough to render word-for-word translation impossible (e.g. ethics raise their ugly head is not likely to be translated into Russian as ^*ètika podnimaet golovu; cf. (Kozerenko 2010) on semantic differences of Alpha and Omega or (Dobrovol’skij 2013: 667) on differences between German sich (Dat.) die Beine in den Bauch stehen ‘to be kept waiting’ (lit. “to set one’s legs standing into the belly”, referring both to the process and result; cf. English to cool/kick one’s heels) and Russian otstoât sebe vse nogi (“to bust one’s legs”, “to ‘destand’ all one’s feet/legs”, referring solely to the result); this one is usually rendered as стоять в (долгих) очередях ‘to stand in (long) queues’.

Finally, such an approach cannot be applied to more language-specific idioms. For instance, the English idiom to suck one’s teeth seems to have a lexical rather an idiomatic counterpart in Russian, namely cykat’ ‘to make a noise resembling the ts sound’ (often describing a crude form of infatuation, an expression of joy or a manner of spitting). A possible way to render to suck one’s teeth would probably be to use a collocation such as cykat’ zubom ‘make the ts sound with one’s tooth’. However, since the Russian verb and the collocations based on it rarely convey a meaning of annoyance the way suck one’s teeth does (however, in The Ordeal by Aleksey Tolstoy one can find an occurrence of kto-to v toske stal cykat’ zubom “someone even started making the ts-sound out of sheer disappointment and yearning”, which is strikingly similar to sucking one’s teeth), it might be better to use šypet’ (ot razdraženiâ) ‘to hiss with annoyance’ instead.

This is tightly connected to the problem of equivalence, which is an important issue for translation and lexicography. The essential types of equivalence are that of translation (e.g. Ah! Ethics raise their ugly head and A, ponâtno, korporativnaâ ètika; sich die Beine in den Bauch stehen and to cool/kick one’s heels) and that of the language system (e.g. sich die Beine in den Bauch stehen and otstoât’ sebe vse nogi or, modification-wise, to raise its snake’s head and podnât’ zmeinuû/âdovituû golovu). The most plausible way of incorporating counterparts such as these into a dictionary might be an amalgam of both approaches, dubbed functional equivalence by Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij (Ibid, 665–667).

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