A norito is composed in an archaic, highly formal register of Japanese, distinct enough from ordinary speech that it functions as a marked liturgical language in its own right, dense with fixed epithets, ceremonial phrasing and honorific structures addressed directly to the kami being invoked. Some of the oldest surviving norito texts are preserved in the Engishiki, a tenth century compilation of court procedures and ritual texts, giving scholars a documented starting point for the genre's formal style even though the oral practice of reciting prayers to the kami is understood to predate that written record considerably.
A Shinto priest, kannushi, recites the norito in a solemn, deliberately intoned voice rather than a conversational one, a manner of delivery that is itself considered part of performing the prayer correctly, comparable in function, though not in specific style, to the chanted delivery expected of liturgical prayer in a number of other traditions. Individual norito are composed or selected for the specific occasion and specific kami being addressed, so a shrine's ceremonial calendar over the course of a year draws on a range of distinct norito texts rather than a single fixed prayer repeated at every rite, and the composition or adaptation of norito for a given ceremony remains an ongoing part of Shinto priestly practice rather than a closed historical corpus.