Florian Coulmas was director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo from 2004 to 2010.
Among his most influential books on the relationship between language and society include: Language and Economy. Blackwell Oxford or Language Systems of the World, Basil Blackwell. He recently published Writting in Society. An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, New York and Sociolinguistics. The Study of Speakers' Choices. Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.