摘要
ELP （English Language Proficiency） testing is both time-consuming and wasteful if the texts are used merely as tools for assessment. CDA （Critical Discourse Analysis） is an approach that allows for text, processing and social analyses. This paper focuses on the problem-solution discourse pattern in a text selected from the responses of 86 Chinese law school freshmen to a writing test prompt that addressed problems with learning English. The text was compared and contrasted with the response of the same subject as a senior to the identical prompt. The objectives of the CDA were to investigate what constraints were placed on contents, relations and subjects in terms of discourse and to describe, interpret and explain formal features that function to elicit experiential, relational and expressive values simultaneously in the texts. Further analyses of such texts may contribute to ESP （English for Specific Purposes） curriculum and materials development for non-English majors
