The article discusses the main interpretations of the concept of intertextuality, its broad and narrow understanding. The narrow meaning of the term implies references to verbal pretexts within a certain verbal text or else a stylistic device used mainly in poetry, while a broader vision takes into account all sorts of interactions between texts both verbal and non-verbal. Literary critics and specialists in language studies commonly use the narrow meaning of the term. Bakhtin, however, whose works are recognized as a basis for intertextuality theory, argued that human thought itself and communication are dialogic in their nature. To reveal cognitive foundations of intertextuality and to rationalize the variability in the meaning of the term, the article considers the provisions of the intertextuality theory in the context of modern studies in psycholinguistics, anthropology, philosophy and linguoculturology on thought and communication. The article argues that intertextuality, as it manifests itself in various forms in texts of different genres both verbal and non-verbal, is associated with some definitive features of human thinking, namely, the ability to create fictions and the desire to accumulate and transfer knowledge. Intertextuality may be an important tool used by humans to ensure cultural transmission and maintenance of norms and stereotypes. Therefore, the narrow understanding of the term does not fully reflect the nature of the phenomenon, but is useful for particular studies as an operational definition. The borders of the meaning are determined in the end by the borders of the disciplines that study the issue. For example, literary studies often count only references to verbal texts, while art historians consider both allusions to visual arts and literary works. The mechanisms involved in the process of referring to and recognizing previous verbal texts in new texts may be similar to the mechanisms of referring to and recognizing works of art. Explicit marked intertextuality may be similar to implicit unmarked one. The article suggests that further research on intertextuality within interdisciplinary studies, such as cognitive linguistics, may bring to light new facts about cognitive aspects of intertextuality, and therefore allow describing meaning construction in various cases of intertextual references.