How To Sign Will In ASL: A Comprehensive Guide To Future Tense And Legal Terminology

To sign will in American Sign Language, you must distinguish between the future tense marker and the legal document noun, as these concepts utilize entirely different handshapes and spatial placements. Mastering these variations requires specific attention to facial grammar, which acts as the mandatory grammatical modifier for tense in ASL.

Foundational Linguistic Prerequisites for ASL Tense and Nouns

Before attempting to articulate the sign for will, one must understand that ASL does not use verb conjugations like English. Instead, the language utilizes temporal aspect markers and spatial positioning. When you sign will as a future tense marker, you are establishing a temporal boundary; when you sign will as a legal document, you are utilizing a lexical sign that requires specific nominalization.

• Essential Gear and Prerequisites:
• Visual Field Awareness: Ensure your signing space is clear, keeping the sign within the neutral signing plane (the area between your mid-chest and forehead).
• NMM (Non-Manual Markers): For the future tense will, your eyebrows must be neutral or slightly raised. For the legal document noun, maintain a neutral, serious expression.
• Prerequisite Knowledge: Familiarity with the ASL manual alphabet for fingerspelling, as legal terms are frequently fingerspelled to avoid ambiguity.
• Estimated Duration: A proficient signer can master these two variations in approximately 10 to 15 minutes of dedicated repetition.
• Cost: Zero, assuming access to standard ASL instructional resources or native community members.

Step-by-Step Execution for Future Tense and Legal Will

The distinction between the two signs is critical for clarity. Mixing these signs can lead to severe miscommunication in professional, legal, or medical settings. Follow these steps to ensure anatomical accuracy.

Step 1: Executing the Future Tense Marker (The Concept of Will)

The sign for the future tense in ASL is a directional motion representing the movement forward in time.

1. Shape your dominant hand into a flat palm, with your fingers held together and your thumb tucked slightly or extended at a 45-degree angle.
2. Position your hand at the side of your head, near your temple, with the palm facing inward toward your body.
3. In one smooth, continuous motion, move your hand forward away from your temple and into the neutral space in front of you.
4. The movement should be deliberate and horizontal. This represents the trajectory of time moving from the present into the future.

Pro-Tip: Do not flick your wrist upward at the end of the motion. A smooth, straight path indicates a general future, while a longer, extended path can emphasize a more distant future.

Step 2: Executing the Legal Document (The Noun Will)

When discussing a Last Will and Testament, fingerspelling is the industry standard for clarity, as there is no single universally recognized sign that covers every regional variant.

1. Begin by fingerspelling the letters W-I-L-L.
2. Ensure each letter is crisp and distinct. Hold the W for a micro-second, transition to the I, then the L, and finish with a slight hold on the final L to indicate the end of the word.
3. If context is established, some communities use a gesture of signing DOCUMENT (two flat hands coming together as if opening a file) followed by the fingerspelled word WILL.

Warning: Avoid using the sign for WILLING (a sign where you tap your chest with an open palm) when referring to a legal will. These signs are phonologically distinct and using them interchangeably will create confusion regarding your intent.

Step 3: Integrating Non-Manual Markers for Grammatical Accuracy

ASL is a spatial language where facial expression dictates the mood and tense.

1. When using the future tense sign, ensure your eyes are focused toward the space where you moved your hand. This directs the audience’s attention to the future timeline.
2. When referencing a legal will, maintain direct eye contact with the interlocutor to convey the gravity and seriousness of the subject matter.
3. Use a slight head nod when finishing the sign to indicate completion of the thought.

Technical Parameters and Methodological Comparison

The following table outlines the mechanical differences between the tense marker and the noun, emphasizing the distinct physical requirements for each.

Common Field Failures and Remediation Strategies

Even experienced signers may encounter difficulty when integrating these terms into complex sentences. Here are the most frequent pitfalls and their corresponding technical fixes.

• Ambiguous Spatial Placement
• Root Cause: Moving the hand too low toward the chest or too high toward the forehead, which mimics other ASL signs like TOMORROW or YEAR.
• Actionable Fix: Practice in front of a mirror to ensure your hand stops consistently at the temple. The temple is the anchor point for all future-oriented temporal signs.
• Over-Signing the Noun
• Root Cause: Attempting to combine the sign for "desire" or "willingness" with the legal document, leading to an incoherent message.
• Actionable Fix: Strictly use fingerspelling for legal nomenclature. If the recipient is unfamiliar with the term, fingerspell it slowly and repeat it, followed by a classifier to indicate a document (using your hands to represent the shape of a piece of paper).
• Missing Tense Transitions
• Root Cause: Failing to move the hand forward for the future tense, leaving the sentence without a defined timeline.
• Actionable Fix: Treat the movement as an essential part of the sign. Without the forward vector, the sign is anatomically incomplete and will not register as a tense marker.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a specific sign for Last Will and Testament?

There is no standardized singular sign for this phrase. Professionals generally fingerspell the full phrase or use the sign for WILL followed by the sign for DOCUMENT or TESTAMENT, the latter of which is often fingerspelled or represented by a specific religious context sign depending on the regional variety.

Can I use the sign for Future instead of Will?

Yes, the sign for FUTURE is functionally identical to the future-tense WILL. You can use them interchangeably to indicate an upcoming event or state, provided your facial grammar matches the intended meaning of your sentence.

Should I sign Will before or after the verb?

In ASL, the tense marker (the future sign) usually appears at the beginning of the sentence or immediately before the verb. Placing it at the beginning establishes the time frame for the entire subsequent clause, which is the preferred structure for clarity.

Why do some people move their hand differently when signing will?

Regional dialect and personal style influence the size of the movement. While the anatomical start and end points remain constant at the temple and neutral space, some signers use a larger, more emphatic arc to stress that an event will definitely occur.

Expand Your ASL Proficiency

Continue refining your signing accuracy by engaging with certified Deaf mentors or local ASL interpretation workshops to ensure your usage remains consistent with contemporary community standards. Dedicated practice in spatial awareness will significantly improve your clarity and professional reception within the Deaf community.