The study analyses the linguistic means for expressing pain in German. Based on written and oral data, mainly from conversations between doctors and patients, the study analyses the grammatical constructions (e.g. "Ich habe Schmerzen" [I have pain] or "Mein Bein tut weh" [My leg hurts]) and develops the patterns deployed by patients with chronic pain to describe their pain in discourse. This interdisciplinary study is directed towards linguists, medics and non-experts with an interest in language; it combines methods from grammar, semantics and conversational analysis, and its results are read in the context of medical literature.