文学作品是语言生活的特殊领域，它记录着语言生活的时代变迁，也以情感的、审美的方式加入社会语言生活的建构。百余年来，中国工人题材诗歌与时代同步，也是工人阶级的心灵史诗。从语言与认同角度考察，现代时期工人题材诗歌的叙述人称和人称代词存在从“他”向“我们”的历史变迁；在改革开放以来的4种主要的当代工人诗歌类型里，则普遍发生了由“我们”向“我”的转换。叙述人称不同，缘于主体认同的差异，也决定了叙述人应该如何斟酌字词，又怎样连句成篇，进而绘制出具有时代性和群体特点的语言生活图景。由此角度切入，可以深探当代工人诗歌写作主体的精神世界与情感结构，从“我们”中脱落出来的“我”在重新凝聚力量，聚拢精神碎片，开始新的主体性确认与生长。

Literary works constitute a special domain of language life. They record the temporal changes of language life and participate in the construction of sociolinguistic life through emotional and aesthetic expressions. For over a century, Chinese poetry themed on workers has advanced side by side with the times, serving as a spiritual epic of the working class. From the perspectives of language and identity, the narrative persons and personal pronouns in modern worker-themed poetry have undergone a historical shift from the third-person pronoun “he” to the first-person pronoun “we”. Among the four major genres of contemporary workers’ poetry emerging since the reform and opening-up, a prevalent transition from “we” to “I” has emerged. Differences in narrative persons stem from variations in subjective identity, and they also determine how narrators choose their words, organize sentences into coherent texts, and thereby depict a picture of language life imbued with temporal traits and group characteristics. Approaching the subject from this angle enables an in-depth exploration of the spiritual world and emotional structure of the creators of contemporary workers’ poetry. The “I” that has broken away from the collective “we” is regaining strength, piecing together fragmented spirits, and embarking on the reconfirmation and development of a new subjectivity.