This article discusses a joke told by a Trobriand islander in Kilivila. It is stressed that to understand the contents and the humor of the joke, and the way it is told, requires knowledge of the pragmatic conventions of the speech community in which the joke is told. It is demonstrated that jokes within the Kilivila speech community constitute just one class of speech acts that make up a particular ‘situational-intentional’ language variety, referred to as biga sopa.