ABSTRACT
The joint operation of the mechanism of naturalization and the mechanism of generalization constitutes the underlying mechanism whereby signs produce meaning. The concept of naturalization carries profound implications, and it exerts a critical impact on the formation of mythologies and the communication of ideology. On the first level, naturalization means the conventionalization of the relationship between signifier 1 and the signified 1. The second level of naturalization means that, based on the first level of naturalization and some particular contexts, the arbitrary relationship between the signified 2 and the signifier 1 is eclipsed. The similarity between the signified 2 and the signifier 1 has covered up their otherwise random relationship and has managed to create a connotation. In the theories formulated by Roland Barthes, John Fiske, Terence Hawkes, and other semioticians, the idea of myth is essentially a form of connotation constructed on the basis of denotation.
