What will "this country" refer to after mentioning a foreign state?

Question

As far as I know, it is typical to refer to the country where the speaker lives as *this country*. For example, if a person lives in Great Britain and he wants to mention weather in Great Britain, he might say "Weather in this country is blahblahblah". Now we have a text written by a citizen of Great Britain saying something like "Patent law is quite complicated in the USA. In this country blahblahblah..." What will "this country" naturally refer to in the second sentence - to the USA or to Great Britain? How would the author change his text so that it is clear that the second sentence also refers specifically to the USA or to Great Britain?

Answer 1

The phrase "this country" is dependent on the context of the speaker/writer. If someone says "this country has 10 million people" without any specification of what country they mean, you can assume that they mean the country they are currently in. So, if someone is in Great Britain and says "this country has 10 million people," then that person is talking about the country of Great Britain.

However, in your second example, the phrase "this country" refers to the USA. You know this because the writer/speaker introduces the country in the first sentence: "Patent law is quite complicated in the USA. In this country blahblahblah..." The phrase "in this country" functions like an antecedent-pronoun relationship. The antecedent is "in the USA" and the pronoun is "in this country." Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Just be specific, Instead of saying "this country" write the country you are referring to. In this case "In Great Britain etc...