This
paper describes the English used in Computer Science from a comparative
genre analysis perspective revealing opposing narrative rhetorics among
the different genres analyzed. A total corpus of 60 articles (20 research
articles, 20 popularizations and 20 specialist non-academic articles) have
been studied. Four linguistic variables have been taken into consideration:
the use of marked themes, grammatical subjects, tenses and voice, and the
use of acronyms. This survey indicates that computer science research articles
are representative of the rhetoric of science, whereas popularizations
and specialist non-academic papers are representative of the rhetoric of
technology.