(Korean National Open University): Notwithstanding is the only English preposition that can both precede and follow its complement (i.e. object) without a change of form. Previous studies have not provided an extensive empirical analysis of the word order variation. This study investigates which factors have an effect on the position of notwithstanding by utilizing relevant historical and modern corpora. With respect to regional differences, the findings reveal that the postposed forms are in general more common in American English than in British English. In terms of genre, while it is found that the preposition is most frequent in academic writings, the ratio of the postpositional variant is higher in less formal genres such as fiction, magazine and news. Historically, the frequency of postposed notwithstanding increases in the twentieth century after a period of early loss in its usage in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. In this paper, I argue that this is due to post-colonial revival and not colonial lag. The preposed form is dominant in different national varieties of English around the world. The future of notwithstanding is uncertain since the preposition itself is becoming rarer in present-day English notwithstanding the fact that the use of postpositional variant increases in American English.