Adam Głaz Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland 2013. In: Cognitive Linguistics in the Making. Ed. Kinga Rudnicka-Szozda and Aleksander Szwedek. 77-87. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. When -ities collide. Virtuality, actuality, reality Abstract. Ronald Langacker’s model of virtuality vs. actuality vs. reality requires a critical approach. Light on the problem can be shed through consideration of science fiction, understood as a language-generated derivative world. The areas subject to further elaboration include (i) the relationship between virtuality and what Langacker calls elaborated reality, (ii) the relationship between basic, immediate and elaborated reality (Langacker’s terms), (iii) the status of reality vis-à-vis actuality and (iv) the (actual or virtual) status of Langacker’s instance plane. It is claimed that benefits are potentially reciprocal: an understanding of science fiction is also enriched through an application of the Cognitive Grammar model for its analysis. Keywords: virtuality; actuality; reality; Cognitive Grammar; science fiction 1. The problem In one of the Peanuts cartoons, Sally Brown announces Snoopy with “There’s a dog here who wants to come in”, to which the latter responds with the typical amour propre: “Not ‘a’ dog... ‘The’ dog”. The exchange well illustrates the problem I will be discussing: where do linguistic expressions take us, into the realm of reality, actuality or virtuality? In Langacker’s (1999, 2005, 2009) understanding, both a dog and the dog here are references to actual instances of dog. But are they references to reality? Risking Snoopy’s justified outrage, most of us would say “no”. However, the answer need not be so unequivocal, as I will argue in a later part of the chapter and illustrate these claims with two examples from a science fiction novel. First, however, I will discuss Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar approach to virtuality, actuality and reality. 2. Langacker on virtuality vs. actuality Figure 1 is a pseudo-3D rendering of Langacker’s rather well-known diagram: Figure 1. Langacker’s model of virtuality-vs.-actuality-vs.-reality (based on Langacker, 1999, p. 43, Fig. 1) G t Virtual Plane Actual Plane Reality World