Critical reviewO'Hanlon, R (2006). Australian Hip Hop: A Sociolinguistic Investigation. Australian Journal of Linguistics Vol. 26, no. 2, October 2006, pp. 193-209 The Australian accent induces feelings of both affection and embarrassment in a general Australian context. This polarity is the result of the "cultural retreat" towards the accent itself in a movement to sound more British in the 1940s, but also the large-scale desire for identity markers of Australian nationality respectively. As a result, the majority of Australian musical artists sing primarily with an American or Australian-American hybrid accent. This article presents research into the use of American English in songs by Australian artists, as well as how Australian hip hop artists, as a musical minority, adhere to the use of Australian English . In the article, O'Hanlon claims that Australian hip-hop artists reject the implementation of an American accent and in some cases even use the more stereotypical Australian accent, namely the broad accent. O'Hanlon studied thirty songs from the Australian hip hop genre and thirty non-hip hop songs, varying from pop to punk by different Australian artists. Each phoneme in these songs was examined based on the accent it is applied to, with the exception of words such as "I" and "my" and words that contain regional differences in Australian English. Out of thirty AHH songs, only six possessed characteristics of American English, and this was inconsistent throughout the song. The study presents some reasons as to why this phenomenon occurs so consistently and obviously in Australian music, but not in Australian hip music. hop. Firstly, it is claimed that due to the a-melodic nature......middle of the article......hence O'Hanlon's assertion about the use of l American and Australian English among different Australian artists and genres. It comprehensively covers the phonetic characteristics of English variations used in music and provides a wide range of genres from which to draw conclusions. One criticism is that there is no mention of the fact that hip hop artists' use of Australian pronunciation plays a role as an identity marker. This emphasis cements solidarity between artists who are generally from and oriented towards a certain demographic. No sociocultural context is given on the genders described, as demographics are neither mentioned nor emphasized. Given that American and Australian hip hop have strong sociocultural and linguistic ties within their demographics, this could have provided the basis for a theory as to why AHH so clearly rejects American vernacular..