Introduction. This article is devoted to the linguocultural study of humorous texts/metaphors which appeared in German during the COVID-19 pandemic. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the previously unexplored study of the linguocultural specificity of German-language humour in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. The relevance of the research is due to the interest of modern linguistics in the study of national specificity of humour.Methodology and sources. The research is conducted within the framework of the linguocultural approach using descriptive, comparative and interpretative analysis methods. The illustrative material is described and interpreted as a product of an individual's speech self-expression, marking and evaluating himself and what is happening within the boundaries of his (ethno)culture.Results and discussion. The main thematic dominant theme in the COVID-19 pandemic discourse is “us and them in the context of the new reality”. The study showed: the pandemic discourse is characterised by expressiveness and axiology, irony and self-irony, stereotyping and interpretation of self and self through the prism of others. Pandemic / self-isolation → stress → carnivalisation of consciousness represent the average German as a person who overcomes reality and evaluates it on the basis of ethno-cultural ideas about norms and patterns of behaviour in certain circumstances (the concept Ordnung). Some contexts illustrate an ironic reinterpretation of the concept of Sicherheit.Conclusion. The representation of reality is constructed on the basis of mentality and national stereotypes; within German culture, the contexts reveal a cultural distinction and, on the level of ethno-cultural comparison, a contradiction of cultural codes.

Verbal means of reflecting the situation of the coronavirus pandemic through the prism of German humor are considered. The relevance of the study is due to the interest of modern language science in the study of discourses as a kind of markers of linguistic consciousness and speech behavior. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that German humorous texts about the pandemic have not yet become the subject of a special scientific study. The purpose of the study is to describe and interpret the motives, reactions, assessments that represent the main areas of life that have changed during the pandemic. It is shown that the pandemic appears in jokes as a discursive space that predetermines and models a jokingly ironic assessment of the current situation: forced self-isolation served as a pretext for an ironic rethinking of marital, parent-child relationships, a public negative assessment of distance education is given, the state of some members of the society is comprehended as a mental illness. The representation of reality is constructed not without the influence of ethno-cultural factors and stereotypes: the German is comprehended and evaluated within the framework of the “own — different — alien” modus. The study can be continued as part of an interlingual description of humor during the coronavirus pandemic in order to study the linguocognitive, linguocultural aspects of language activity.