The subject of research in this paper is intertextuality in literature texts as one of the aspects of the reading event. The purpose of this article is to outline the methodological guidelines to adequately raise the question of the role of “intertextual” relationships in the act of interpretation. The attempt is made to provide typology of existing approaches to the above problem. Methodological “poles” are found in the very origin of the term “intertextuality”, proposed by J.Kristeva in 1967, a term that sprang from her interpretation of M.M.Bakhtin's ideas on dialogue. Therefore, considerable attention is paid to the relationship between the concepts of “intertextuality” and “dialogue”, to the clarification the meaning of one concept replacement with another in the work of J.Kristeva. An attempt is made to interpret these concepts in the contexts of the works of these researchers, in the writings of R.Barthes, as well as in the works of some of the commentators . A comparative analysis of the concepts of “foreign” words in M.M.Bakhtin and J.Kristeva has been conducted. The comparison show that the concept of “intertextuality” is a “translation” of the concept of “dialogue” to a “language” of fundamentally different methodology. The reference to the “historical episode” of the emergence of the concept “intertextuality” allows us to identify the existing range of diverging interpretations of the understanding of the phenomenon of “intertextual” relationships. One of the limits of understanding is related to the linguistic nature of the literary text and involves the practice of “open” reading, emphasis on the text’s external relations and the “deciphering” of quotes. Another limit deals with dialogical, personal nature of a literary work and emphasizes the value-semantic integrity of a “polyphonic” literary expression. This allows one to raise a question of intertextuality as an aspect of understanding the unique artistic whole, influenced by life and cultural context.