We report the first polarization dependent Raman scattering study in Hg0.8Cd0.2Te from the (100) and (111) faces. The Raman spectra were recorded in the back scattering geometry at 77 K using several lines of an Ar+ laser near resonance with the E1 optical gap. The study leads to an unambiguous identification of the HgTe and CdTe-like transverse optical (TO) and longitudinal optical (LO) phonon features. The HgTe-like TO and LO phonons occur at 122±1 cm−1 and 140±1 cm−1 and the CdTe-like LO phonon occurs at 156±1 cm−1; the CdTe-like TO–LO splitting was too small to be observable. The presence of a symmetry forbidden HgTe-like TO phonon from the (100) face indicates the presence of defects or disorder. A defect mode was observed at ∼108 cm−1. In addition, an extremely surface sensitive feature was seen at 132 cm−1 and has been tentatively assigned to a coupled LO phonon–intersubband excitation from the natural occurring surface inversion layer. A strong feature observed at 135 cm−1 may arise from clustering effects.