<![CDATA[This study examines how linguistic choices, character relationships, joke targets, and recipient responses shape gender representation and the interactional functions of humour in Cocote Tonggo. It adopts a qualitative approach informed by sociolinguistics. The data consist of selected dialogue sequences in a researcher-prepared film transcript. The analysis considers linguistic form, conversational context, targets, and subsequent responses, distinguishing interpreted functions from unobserved effects. The transcript-based findings indicate that playful questioning and correction can organise humorous exchanges. A body analogy extended by another speaker demonstrates alignment among interlocutors while positioning an absent woman as an object of evaluation. Similarly, talk about another character’s English proficiency connects incongruity, shared laughter, and social judgment. By contrast, a coarse response to a polite offer establishes a speech-level contrast without independently demonstrating humorous acceptance. These findings suggest that gender representation must be examined through linguistic form, topic, character positioning, target, and response rather than speaker gender composition alone. The study contributes an account of humour as an interactional practice that can align speakers while disparaging others. Its findings are limited to selected cinematic dialogues and do not establish general characteristics of men’s or women’s language, humour frequency across the film, or audience effects. Prosodic and nonverbal interpretations require verification against the audiovisual source.]]>
